Categories > Original > Fantasy > 131 Night End
Kaylee had stopped by Constantine’s office early enough, and found the invitation laid out in a relatively clear spot. However, Con was either avoiding her or he had taken to sulking somewhere she didn’t know about.
The invite managed to find a place in the pocket of Kaylee’s short green dress that came just below her knees. She had hardly dared look at it, mostly for fear it would disappear in a burst of smoke. Parties like this, namely, illegal ones, had never been her forte. What on Earth would she wear? Most girls her age wore dresses that ended far above the knees.
But that was unseemly. Kaylee stuck to long dresses and science, thank you very much.
Kaylee stopped in front of a boutique, staring at at a yellow beaded number that barely covered the mannequin it clothed.
Disgusting.
And very shiny. And very, very fashionable.
Kaylee bit her lip. What would she look like wearing that dress? How pretty would she be? Was yellow even her color?
Maybe...she could just try it on. Just to see what it would look like. She wouldn’t buy it, of course. Applesauce! She couldn’t! She’d just...try it on.
Of course, Kaylee bought the dress. And some matching shoes.
____________________________
Kaylee returned home to find her brother Alvin hanging from a bookshelf like a particularly odd potted plant.
“I got the crime prints!” he shouted, showing a flash of faded blue tongue.
“Did you, now?”
“You betcha! And, I, uh, may have shown them to Jin. Y’know, that girl that you don’t like.”
Anger rocketed up Kaylee’s throat, giving a hard push behind her eyes and made her fingers twitch. “Did you, now?” she said icily. Alvin’s eyes dropped to the grain of the wood floor and he mumbled something. “Didn’t hear you,” Kaylee said, crossing her arms. Alvin looked up from the floor, and tried to hold his sister’s gaze.
“I said, I don’t know why you hate her so much. Aren’t friends good for someone like me?”
Kaylee balked. This was not a topic she could tackle easily, and she needed to be free for the rest of the afternoon to get ready for that dratted party.
“Alvin, it’s balled up at the moment, but can we not--”
“You were the only person who was remotely copacetic with my...schizophrenia. Alright? There. And you can go out, alright, you can go outside without having to worry that every living soul can’t stand to touch you, you can talk to people without sweating what they’re thinking,” Alvin said in monotone, picking at a stray thread on his sweater. Kaylee wasn’t sure what to say, so she said the first thing that popped into her head.
“At least Dad didn’t hate you.”
Alvin cut his eyes up to stare at his sister. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
Sighing, he cast the dog-eared photographs on the table. “Victim’s name is Elizabeth Lavenza. Tooth was hers, and so was most of the blood.”
Kaylee pounced on the photos, anything to get rid of that conversation. “Most? So what was the rest?” she asked, spreading the pictures with her fingers. Alvin shrugged and wearily climbed the stairs that led up to his room. Kaylee turned her attention back to the photographs. Blood, blood, and more blood. Goodness gracious, that was more than what was in one human, wasn’t it? Stupid, stupid, should have known that by looking. So that could mean a multiple victim homicide, which meant either more than one monster or one very big brute indeed. And even then, where could all the bodies go? Or the monsters themselves? Bones were hard to get rid of, and not a lot of creatures were in the business of consuming them. So that would narrow it down a lot, but what could it be?
Leaving the photographs on the kitchen table in a heap, Kaylee went upstairs to get ready.
_______________________
Constantine hunched over a record book, writing down another serial code. His back hurt, his neck ached, and his eyes felt like they could pop. And his hair kept falling in his face. God knows he could never cut it-long hair was fashionable. Besides, girls liked boys with long hair, even if they had never liked him. Groaning in exasperation, Constantine grabbed a rubber band and braided a particularly troublesome section of hair out of his face tying it out of the way. Grabbing a second rubber band off his desk, Con loaded in a paperclip and shot A Criminal History of Mankind that was minding it’s own business on the other side of the room. He loaded in another paperclip and aimed for a loftier goal, specifically Anna Karenina that was a few shelves up. Taking aim, Constantine closed one eye and the muscles in his right arm tensed. He waited, and then fired. He was off by five feet, and knocked a vase off a shelf and sent it crashing to the floor. The vase was not Constantine’s; it merely came with the office.
There was a shout from down the hallway. Constantine paled and emitted a squeak, hastily turning back to his work. However, the uneven footsteps came down the hallway, and Walter Short, Constantine’s boss, filled the doorway.
Walter Short had previously been General Short, back when he was younger, but a lost leg had earned him an honorable discharge from the army. In the years afterwards, Walter had maintained his army-ready attitude, and had gained twenty pounds. Now at Eighty-seven, Walter was an impressive specimen at six foot two and two hundred ten pounds.
“WHAT WAS THAT?” he asked, quite loudly, as he was mostly deaf.
“NOTHING!” shouted Con, bending over his work.
Walter narrowed his eyes. “WHAT?”
Constantine turned away from the index he was writing.
“I said, EVERYTHING IS FINE!” yelled Constantine.
Walter strode forwards unevenly, belly jiggling. “SEE, BOY, WHAT I THINK YOUR PROBLEM IS? YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND!” he shouted. “HOW MUCH THE OLDER GENERATION HAS SACRIFICED!”
Constantine nodded, angling his chair to keep Walter from seeing the broken vase. He hoped his boss would skedaddle soon. Walter was terrifying.
“YOU KIDS NOWADAYS SEEM TO THINK YOU CAN CHANGE THE HUMAN RACE WITH YOUR NEWFANGLED SCIENCES! IN MY DAY, WE FOUGHT THE-”
Constantine started nodding, and tuned out Mr. Short’s war stories wondering if he could turn back to his work while being assaulted by Walter’s bellowing. Constantine managed to catch snippets of ‘Gin joints’ and ‘scantily-clad women’ before Walter blustered to a stop. “Sir, I understand completely. And I swear, it will never happen again,” reassured Constantine, despite him having no knowledge of what his employer was talking about.
Walter blinked, then abruptly harrumphed. “See to it that it doesn’t happen again!” he said at a reasonable decibel, and stumped out the door.
________________________
The address of the Second Star invitation was wrong, or at least, it seemed that way to Kaylee. She had been led to a small tea store in Ropeworth, as opposed to something...well, something more glamourous. Kaylee looked around, but then remembered she couldn’t exactly ask somebody for the location of an illegal club. Although she did agree with it, Kaylee internally cursed the eighteenth amendment for making finding information so difficult. She was attracting a lot of stares in her new dress, and she wasn’t sure what to do. Well, then, she was dolled-up, young, and pretty. She’d ask the first man she saw where to go. Catching the sleeve of a man who looked just as lost as she was, Kaylee spun him to face her.
“Do you know the location of the Second Star?”
The man, at second glance, didn’t seem to be any older than she was, although he was transitioning from childhood to adulthood a great deal more awkwardly than she. Knobbly cheekbones jutted out from a face marked by some form of psoriasis, and lank brown hair was sloppily tied back in a loose ponytail. He gaped, jaw working like a beached fish.
“I, uh, I, duh-duh-duh-don’t know ex-ex-exactly. Buh-buh-buh-buh-But, I’m tuh-tuh-trying to find my way there, my-my-myself.”
He flushed, and clamped his jaw shut. Kaylee recognized the facial expression. Alvin wore it whenever somebody commented on his tongue. The stammer was probably nothing and was only exacerbated by talking to a girl that he didn’t know. “I’m Kaylee Freck. What’s your name?” she asked him.
“James. Wuh-wuh-well, Jim, really. But, um, Jekyll.”
Kaylee blinked, and her heart started hammering. “James Henry Jekyll?” she sputtered. He nodded, blushing beneath his dry spots.
Kaylee grabbed his biceps, not caring that he was dry-spotted and ill-kept and stammered. “I read your articles! Well, all of them, really, but who's counting? You’re so ab-so-lute-ly cat’s meow ! Your work with Osteosarcoma is just...it’s groundbreaking! I mean, anybody could see bone cancer staying in the bones, but...you...you said that...” Kaylee trailed off. Jim, on the other hand, had frozen the minute she put her hands on him.
“Cancer cells are merely cells that run amok and go wherever there’s a weakness in the immune system?” he squeaked, unsure of what to do in this situation. She beamed at him, and he gave a small smile in return. “Exactly! So if you establish a link between brain cancer resurgences and bone cancer ex-patients, you’ll be the next Socrates!” Kaylee squealed, tightening her grip on his biceps so that he could feel the points of her nails through his coat.
“I buh-buh-buh-believe we were looking for a...um?” Jim said, feeling sweat beading on his forehead, and praying this extremely bubbly girl would not notice. He was also losing his train of thought, and that could be blamed on the shortness of Kaylee’s dress.
“Oh! Right! So, what, then? You, me, dancing?” she asked.
That sounded like the best idea he’d ever gotten.
Kaylee grabbed onto Jim’s hand and pulled him towards the tea shop. She could feel the quickening of his pulse in his wrist, and the smooth surface of his fingernails. Something about that wasn’t right. If he really, truly had psoriasis, then his fingernails would feel uneven and have broad white stripes. His face was scarred enough to indicate either years of a mild case or a sudden, aggressive onset. So his fingernails should be marked too.
Kaylee pushed these thoughts to the back of her brain. She was going into an exclusive joint with somebody who was a science god. He was so very, very smart. And she wasn’t about to let go of him.
The invite managed to find a place in the pocket of Kaylee’s short green dress that came just below her knees. She had hardly dared look at it, mostly for fear it would disappear in a burst of smoke. Parties like this, namely, illegal ones, had never been her forte. What on Earth would she wear? Most girls her age wore dresses that ended far above the knees.
But that was unseemly. Kaylee stuck to long dresses and science, thank you very much.
Kaylee stopped in front of a boutique, staring at at a yellow beaded number that barely covered the mannequin it clothed.
Disgusting.
And very shiny. And very, very fashionable.
Kaylee bit her lip. What would she look like wearing that dress? How pretty would she be? Was yellow even her color?
Maybe...she could just try it on. Just to see what it would look like. She wouldn’t buy it, of course. Applesauce! She couldn’t! She’d just...try it on.
Of course, Kaylee bought the dress. And some matching shoes.
____________________________
Kaylee returned home to find her brother Alvin hanging from a bookshelf like a particularly odd potted plant.
“I got the crime prints!” he shouted, showing a flash of faded blue tongue.
“Did you, now?”
“You betcha! And, I, uh, may have shown them to Jin. Y’know, that girl that you don’t like.”
Anger rocketed up Kaylee’s throat, giving a hard push behind her eyes and made her fingers twitch. “Did you, now?” she said icily. Alvin’s eyes dropped to the grain of the wood floor and he mumbled something. “Didn’t hear you,” Kaylee said, crossing her arms. Alvin looked up from the floor, and tried to hold his sister’s gaze.
“I said, I don’t know why you hate her so much. Aren’t friends good for someone like me?”
Kaylee balked. This was not a topic she could tackle easily, and she needed to be free for the rest of the afternoon to get ready for that dratted party.
“Alvin, it’s balled up at the moment, but can we not--”
“You were the only person who was remotely copacetic with my...schizophrenia. Alright? There. And you can go out, alright, you can go outside without having to worry that every living soul can’t stand to touch you, you can talk to people without sweating what they’re thinking,” Alvin said in monotone, picking at a stray thread on his sweater. Kaylee wasn’t sure what to say, so she said the first thing that popped into her head.
“At least Dad didn’t hate you.”
Alvin cut his eyes up to stare at his sister. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
Sighing, he cast the dog-eared photographs on the table. “Victim’s name is Elizabeth Lavenza. Tooth was hers, and so was most of the blood.”
Kaylee pounced on the photos, anything to get rid of that conversation. “Most? So what was the rest?” she asked, spreading the pictures with her fingers. Alvin shrugged and wearily climbed the stairs that led up to his room. Kaylee turned her attention back to the photographs. Blood, blood, and more blood. Goodness gracious, that was more than what was in one human, wasn’t it? Stupid, stupid, should have known that by looking. So that could mean a multiple victim homicide, which meant either more than one monster or one very big brute indeed. And even then, where could all the bodies go? Or the monsters themselves? Bones were hard to get rid of, and not a lot of creatures were in the business of consuming them. So that would narrow it down a lot, but what could it be?
Leaving the photographs on the kitchen table in a heap, Kaylee went upstairs to get ready.
_______________________
Constantine hunched over a record book, writing down another serial code. His back hurt, his neck ached, and his eyes felt like they could pop. And his hair kept falling in his face. God knows he could never cut it-long hair was fashionable. Besides, girls liked boys with long hair, even if they had never liked him. Groaning in exasperation, Constantine grabbed a rubber band and braided a particularly troublesome section of hair out of his face tying it out of the way. Grabbing a second rubber band off his desk, Con loaded in a paperclip and shot A Criminal History of Mankind that was minding it’s own business on the other side of the room. He loaded in another paperclip and aimed for a loftier goal, specifically Anna Karenina that was a few shelves up. Taking aim, Constantine closed one eye and the muscles in his right arm tensed. He waited, and then fired. He was off by five feet, and knocked a vase off a shelf and sent it crashing to the floor. The vase was not Constantine’s; it merely came with the office.
There was a shout from down the hallway. Constantine paled and emitted a squeak, hastily turning back to his work. However, the uneven footsteps came down the hallway, and Walter Short, Constantine’s boss, filled the doorway.
Walter Short had previously been General Short, back when he was younger, but a lost leg had earned him an honorable discharge from the army. In the years afterwards, Walter had maintained his army-ready attitude, and had gained twenty pounds. Now at Eighty-seven, Walter was an impressive specimen at six foot two and two hundred ten pounds.
“WHAT WAS THAT?” he asked, quite loudly, as he was mostly deaf.
“NOTHING!” shouted Con, bending over his work.
Walter narrowed his eyes. “WHAT?”
Constantine turned away from the index he was writing.
“I said, EVERYTHING IS FINE!” yelled Constantine.
Walter strode forwards unevenly, belly jiggling. “SEE, BOY, WHAT I THINK YOUR PROBLEM IS? YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND!” he shouted. “HOW MUCH THE OLDER GENERATION HAS SACRIFICED!”
Constantine nodded, angling his chair to keep Walter from seeing the broken vase. He hoped his boss would skedaddle soon. Walter was terrifying.
“YOU KIDS NOWADAYS SEEM TO THINK YOU CAN CHANGE THE HUMAN RACE WITH YOUR NEWFANGLED SCIENCES! IN MY DAY, WE FOUGHT THE-”
Constantine started nodding, and tuned out Mr. Short’s war stories wondering if he could turn back to his work while being assaulted by Walter’s bellowing. Constantine managed to catch snippets of ‘Gin joints’ and ‘scantily-clad women’ before Walter blustered to a stop. “Sir, I understand completely. And I swear, it will never happen again,” reassured Constantine, despite him having no knowledge of what his employer was talking about.
Walter blinked, then abruptly harrumphed. “See to it that it doesn’t happen again!” he said at a reasonable decibel, and stumped out the door.
________________________
The address of the Second Star invitation was wrong, or at least, it seemed that way to Kaylee. She had been led to a small tea store in Ropeworth, as opposed to something...well, something more glamourous. Kaylee looked around, but then remembered she couldn’t exactly ask somebody for the location of an illegal club. Although she did agree with it, Kaylee internally cursed the eighteenth amendment for making finding information so difficult. She was attracting a lot of stares in her new dress, and she wasn’t sure what to do. Well, then, she was dolled-up, young, and pretty. She’d ask the first man she saw where to go. Catching the sleeve of a man who looked just as lost as she was, Kaylee spun him to face her.
“Do you know the location of the Second Star?”
The man, at second glance, didn’t seem to be any older than she was, although he was transitioning from childhood to adulthood a great deal more awkwardly than she. Knobbly cheekbones jutted out from a face marked by some form of psoriasis, and lank brown hair was sloppily tied back in a loose ponytail. He gaped, jaw working like a beached fish.
“I, uh, I, duh-duh-duh-don’t know ex-ex-exactly. Buh-buh-buh-buh-But, I’m tuh-tuh-trying to find my way there, my-my-myself.”
He flushed, and clamped his jaw shut. Kaylee recognized the facial expression. Alvin wore it whenever somebody commented on his tongue. The stammer was probably nothing and was only exacerbated by talking to a girl that he didn’t know. “I’m Kaylee Freck. What’s your name?” she asked him.
“James. Wuh-wuh-well, Jim, really. But, um, Jekyll.”
Kaylee blinked, and her heart started hammering. “James Henry Jekyll?” she sputtered. He nodded, blushing beneath his dry spots.
Kaylee grabbed his biceps, not caring that he was dry-spotted and ill-kept and stammered. “I read your articles! Well, all of them, really, but who's counting? You’re so ab-so-lute-ly cat’s meow ! Your work with Osteosarcoma is just...it’s groundbreaking! I mean, anybody could see bone cancer staying in the bones, but...you...you said that...” Kaylee trailed off. Jim, on the other hand, had frozen the minute she put her hands on him.
“Cancer cells are merely cells that run amok and go wherever there’s a weakness in the immune system?” he squeaked, unsure of what to do in this situation. She beamed at him, and he gave a small smile in return. “Exactly! So if you establish a link between brain cancer resurgences and bone cancer ex-patients, you’ll be the next Socrates!” Kaylee squealed, tightening her grip on his biceps so that he could feel the points of her nails through his coat.
“I buh-buh-buh-believe we were looking for a...um?” Jim said, feeling sweat beading on his forehead, and praying this extremely bubbly girl would not notice. He was also losing his train of thought, and that could be blamed on the shortness of Kaylee’s dress.
“Oh! Right! So, what, then? You, me, dancing?” she asked.
That sounded like the best idea he’d ever gotten.
Kaylee grabbed onto Jim’s hand and pulled him towards the tea shop. She could feel the quickening of his pulse in his wrist, and the smooth surface of his fingernails. Something about that wasn’t right. If he really, truly had psoriasis, then his fingernails would feel uneven and have broad white stripes. His face was scarred enough to indicate either years of a mild case or a sudden, aggressive onset. So his fingernails should be marked too.
Kaylee pushed these thoughts to the back of her brain. She was going into an exclusive joint with somebody who was a science god. He was so very, very smart. And she wasn’t about to let go of him.
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