I looked at Ada, and we silently agreed. I was suited for this. It was also the best way for me to help the family move forward. I couldn’t do more than support them as best I could. I went and hugged Meera, telling her I’d be back later. She just nodded and held my hand for a moment.

I went back home first, giving the update to Lina and Tukey. I gathered a bunch of cleaning supplies and returned to the restaurant.

The place was dark and closed up. There was guard tape on the doors, but I ignored all that and went through the kitchen door. The smell made me gag instantly. There was a certain smell I had gotten to know that was the smell of rotting flesh and blood—sickeningly sweet, putrid, stomach-turning, rotten, copper and iron. The smell of human feces and bile was in the air too. It was eye-watering and nauseating. I propped the door open to let air in and found the light switch. I found the controls for the kitchen fans and flicked those into humming life.

I stood outside and let the fans and fresh air reduce the stench. As I waited a few minutes, I got myself under control. I worked on divorcing my feeling from my body and the job I was about to do. I didn’t know if Sanjan was still in there or if the guards had removed him. Some of his flesh was here regardless. The smell was proof positive of that. After five minutes, I couldn’t smell anything anymore and was as ready as I could be.

It took me hours, and I don’t know how much food and refuse I removed. Thankfully, all that I found were unidentifiable chunks and so much blood. Sanjan had been just inside the doorway of the storeroom, like one step maybe.

It took me all night and into the next day before I was done. I was sweaty and tired and looked like a murderer. A murderer with a mound of trash and a bloody mop and bucket. But it was clean.

I had some very strong feelings about what had happened. Whatever had jumped Sanjan wasn’t human. Unless a human could precisely place two parallel pairs of huge scissors and cut bone and muscle. In the blood, I found two clear “hand” prints. Each had two fingers on both sides. There were indicators of claws on those fingers, like how the claws of a wolf could sometimes be seen in their footprints.

The next thing was the damage to the shelves in the storeroom. They were chrome steel wire racks. Very common and reasonably strong. Whatever had done this had thrown part of the victim hard enough to wad one up like a paper ball. I say the victim as I can’t think that was my friend’s father anymore. In some ways, he was a friend of mine too. I’d known him since I was a kid.

My skills helped a lot as I could repair the damage done, and somehow the skill also told me how to make things cleaner. Blood wasn’t going to come out on its own, but if I “Repaired” the wallpaper, that meant removing the stains. I unbent shelves that the attacker had torn up. I couldn’t salvage the food or even some of the utensils. In the end, it was removing the remains that was important.

I left the fans running and turned off the lights, locking the door behind me. I dragged an old cart through the streets to the burn pit in the late morning. I sighed and said goodbye to Sanjan then. I was morbidly tossing his last remnants into the huge burning pile. You might think that was disrespectful. It wasn’t; we all burned eventually. If you died inside the city, you ended up in the burn pit. The only difference between a pauper and a prince was the coffin.

I stripped down to my boxers and tossed the coveralls in with him.

It wasn’t the last time I would walk through town in my boxers to catcalls. I returned to the apartment and checked in with the two hens, Lina and Tukey. That’s when I heard the news. A fourth victim had been found in an alleyway across town. No one we knew, thankfully. Same modus operandi; attacked from behind, then bodily desecration.

I could only sigh and get cleaned up. I mechanically ate something Lina handed me and fell asleep on my couch soon after. I had a nagging feeling in the back of my head, and I couldn’t shake it. My brain was chewing on something in the back room of my thoughts, behind closed doors where I couldn’t peek in. it would come to me eventually; for now, it was inaccessible.

I napped for a few hours before returning to Meera’s to check in with them.

Lakshmi opened the door and blubbed at me with red eyes. She came forward and hugged me, her tears wetting my shirt as she said, “Thank you for coming. You are a good boy Izzy.” She held my hand, brought me in, and led me into the kitchen.

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Ada, Meera, and her two little brothers sat around a big table. The smell of the spices in the air was very inviting. They had an assembly line going; they were making sambusa, samosa, or whatever they were called. Fried bread with a pocket of meat and veggies inside. These had been Sanjan’s specialty. Lakshmi took up her spot back at the stove next to a big pot of oil and a stack of already-cooked dumplings.

Meera stood and hugged me, she hung on for a bit longer than was comfortable, but I was here for her comfort, not mine. I just held on, and she wiped her eyes on my shirt. I looked over, and Ada looked at me. I nodded to her. There must be telepathy in the family or something, but she understood the job had been done, and I knew that she knew.

Ada said, “Izzy, you will stay for dinner.” It was a command as much as a request.

“Uh, yeah, sure.” I said as I watched the youngest brother scoop some dough and ball it up. He passed it to the next brother, who pressed the ball into a disc using a tortilla press. Then Meera took it and filled it with stuffing. Ada took it from Meera and shaped it into this triangle thing somehow. Then a plate of them would pass over to Lakshmi to cook.

This wasn’t going to be a balanced dinner in any way. Sanjan had shared this recipe with his family, who made it for him. I knew I could down a dozen of them, especially if there was some of the bright red hot sauce available.

I sat there watching for a moment before Ada pointed at a chair and then between her and Meera. “Come sit here. I will teach you how to fold them. My hands are starting to hurt.” I did as instructed. As I did, I caught Meera’s eyes and saw the tears there. She smiled weakly at me and held her hand for a minute before Ada whacked me with a wooden spoon. “Pay attention now.”

She instructed me, and after a while, I got the hang of how to fold and seal the pockets of goodness. After some time, Lakshmi started to talk about how Sanjan had taught her how to make these. Ada also shared a story of her son-in-law. Meera shared another story of stealing them from her father and the trouble she got into. The boys and I laughed and listened. This was how this family would grieve. They shared stories and celebrated the life of Sanjan. I was a witness and guest, but I was made welcome.

Soon enough, the end of the assembly line ran out of dough, and the last one was into the fryer. We cleared the table and feasted on Sanjan’s Samosa. By the end of it, everyone was feeling somewhat better. The younger boys were hustled off to bed as the hours grew late. Eventually, Ada produced a bottle of something dark and bitter and very alcoholic.

Three generations of ladies of Ada’s family and I shared a round of shots of the stuff. Then another and a third. Each time we poured one out for Sanjan. By the forth, Ada was tipsy, Lakshmi was blubbering drunk and had to be taken to bed. Meera was passed out, and I put her to bed too. I came back out after delivering her to her bed and was about to leave when Ada came out.

She said to me, “Thank you. You are a part of this family now. You know that, right?”

I smiled, heart heavy. “Thank you for sharing the burden with me. Thank you for sharing tonight with me. I needed it too, I think.”

She smiled sadly, “This is a hard thing, but we will all go on. As much as I don’t want to, I will. Those two boys will need some guidance.” I smiled.

“I’ll come by tomorrow and check-in, okay? I gotta get home.” I said.

“Be well, Izzy. See you tomorrow.” Ada said and locked the bolts behind me.

As I walked home, a little buzzed from the strong drink. High resistance helping me there, I felt something at the edge of my senses. It was fleeting and moved strangely. Something leaped across a nearby rooftop, and I had a sense of being watched.

I had a bad feeling about things as I walked on. Whatever was out there killing folks, was it watching me now? Getting ready to kill?

I paused and realized I didn’t have any weapons on me. None. Holy shit, how dumb was I for leaving the house without a weapon? The neighborhood was pretty safe, but the city was still on alert. I heard footsteps and felt the two guards come around the corner. One of them shined a light on me, and I blinked against the sudden brightness.

“Oh hey, it’s Izzy, right?” One of them gruffly asked.

“Yeah, can you take that light off me?” I said in response, shielding my eyes from the light.

“Yeah, sorry.” The voice replied. “I was part of the Puritan response team. You helped us out there. Thank you.”

“Uh, yeah. Thanks to you guys too. Glad no one got hurt.” I said in response. I hadn’t interacted with this person before, but he knew me, and that was good enough.

The other one spoke up, “You should get home. We still haven’t caught whatever is killing folks. Being out alone is asking to get attacked.”

“Yeah, I’m headed there now,” I said.

“Mind if we walk you the rest of the way?” The gruff one asked.

“No need. It’s that building there.” I pointed to the door down the street.

They watched me walk the rest of the way and go inside. The feeling of being watched went away as I stepped away from them. Now thoroughly spooked, I went upstairs and triple-checked all of our security. The thick reinforced windows taken from a bank were all locked and secure. The door was bolted. We were as safe as we could be. I checked in on Lina and Tukey and ensured they were okay before heading to bed.

As I lay down, I felt wrung out. Emotionally drained and scoured. There was a level of catharsis in tonight’s events. I was just closing my eyes when I felt something on the walls outside the window. Something that shouldn’t be there. I could feel the whoosh, whoosh, whoosh of its hearts? I looked out of the window and screamed.