Both of us were quiet through most of the drive, not even bothering to turn on the radio to distract us. Neither of us was very happy with the situation loaded onto our shoulders but it didn’t mean we would need to be chatty.
"Where are we headed anyway?" she finally asked when the city came into view.
"I’m sure you have your contacts as a cop, well I'm going to check in with one of mine." As we drove through the city the buildings slowly changed from the upscale, beautiful buildings that the politicians love showing in brochures to the more regular homes and businesses of normal people.
"You certainly know all the best places to take a girl, Hunter," Mara said as the neighborhood steadily worsened. I could feel eyes watching us from many of the boarded-up windows as we drove by. It wasn’t a bad neighborhood, or even filled with bad people, just times had forced some to deal with less than they once did.
"Don't tell me a cop is getting nervous about the neighborhood looking less than stellar." I turned a corner into what looked to be a blind alley.
"Not here as a cop tonight. If I were I wouldn't be allowed to carry this." She pulled a Smith & Wesson Model 500 from under her jacket. "I'm pretty sure with this, most anyplace could be considered safe."
"And what happens after your five shots are up?" I pulled the car to a stop beside a rusty iron door halfway down the alley.
"Interesting you assume I'm only carrying the one weapon." She smiled again, her teeth shining in the last bit of struggling daylight. Suddenly I was very glad this woman was on my side... even if just for now. I got out of the car and she followed me inside.
Beyond was what appeared at first glance to be any usual DVD rental store. Posters hung on the walls behind racks and racks of movies. A friend of mine, Rashidi, ran the place since not long after he came over from Egypt. He sat behind a chained cage at the far end of the store. I kept an eye on Mara waiting for the inevitable realization of where exactly she was. She took in the store quickly, scanning for any obvious threats but then a look of confusion crept into her gaze.
“Welcome to Rashidi’s Discount Emporium, the only multi-dimensional black market in the state.” I tried to keep from smiling as her eyes went from poster to poster that was familiar but at the same time very different than expected.
There was Tom Sellek as Indiana Jones, The Terminator starring OJ Simpson, and even Sylvester Stalone’s role in Beverly Hills Cop. The stands of discs proudly proclaimed just in Season 2 of Firefly among the promised sequels to Krull and Buckaroo Banzai and many others that just never came to be. At least they didn’t in our world. A few patrons milled around the place, some with more purpose than others as they shopped.
“How did you even find this place?” She recovered her composure quickly enough. “It just looks like every other back alley junk shop I’ve ever seen.”
“Believe it or not, the whole place used to be uptown; Marble walls, fancy draperies and the whole lot, it was nice and the money these movies brought in made it easy on Rashidi’s wallet. People slowly stopped coming, though. Customers thought the fancy walls and art deco sculptures didn’t have a place in what they thought had to be an illegal establishment.” I walked through the store, heading for the counter. “So he moved the whole thing down here, redesigned it and business has never been better.” Always thought of this as a funny story where success nearly stood in the way of success.
Rashidi looked up from the television he was watching and his face broke into a huge grin. “Ahlan wa sahlan, my friend. It has truly been too long.”
“Mara, this is Rashidi, he’s going to help us find a good place to start looking for our ferals.”
“A video clerk?” Mara said dryly. “You are starting to look into a serious pack matter by bringing us to a black market DVD store? I must say given your reputation I expected a little more, how is he supposed to help us?”
“Rashidi has his ways.” The small man practically glowed with mischief as he opened the security door to the back room. “But first... Come see friends, what I have found. A film from over one hundred steps away from our world.” Rashidi pointed to the television he had been watching. On it, a pair of what appeared human-sized insects fought with some strange-looking swords. They chattered and clicked through their dialog as the familiar lines of The Princess Bride moved across the screen in the subtitles. To the right buyer, a film like this would be worth a small fortune… though finding that right buyer could prove difficult. “Speaking of classics with a twist, I am narrowing down the search for the movie you ordered. I should be able to find it for you by Christmas with time to spare.”
I cursed inwardly, I had forgotten I asked Rashidi for a special order. I had planned to give Nate a kind of gag gift that I thought he would get a kick out of. I figured somewhere in the infinities of dimensions he could pull from, Rashidi could find the original Star Wars movies where Nate and myself played the leads. Now, I would never get the chance to give him the present.
“Never mind on that one, Rashidi… Nate’s dead. I won’t be needing it. I’ll still pay you for the time you wasted, though.” My voice sounded tight. Nate and I always knew there were risks in our chosen profession but we had been through so much together that we half thought ourselves immortal. The thought of moving on without my best friend… some might say my only friend… was a jarring one. Rashidi’s face darkened as he heard the news. He reached out and clapped me on the shoulder.
“I am truly sorry, Derek. Don’t bother yourself about paying me, it’s not like I’m hurting for cash flow these days.” He closed the cage behind us. “I take it this isn’t a social visit then, and you’ll be needing some information.”
I nodded. Don’t let the friendly store-owner guise fool you, that was merely how Rashidi paid the bills. He discovered the market for specialty films when he began looking into other dimensions to study the different effects choices had on history. I never asked how he did it, and I thought it likely I was happier not knowing, but his theories on the smallest actions snow-balling into world-changing events had ranked him up at the top of the world’s scientific community.
“Nate was looking into the feral were attack a few days back. it’s the only clue I’ve got to go on, if you could find where they originated from, maybe I could find out something more.”
“And the cop?” He nodded at Mara.
“The cop is here to make sure when things go south… and it’s almost a guarantee they will, someone will make sure people know what happened to the mighty hunter here that left him a shredded pile of meat in some back alley.”
I smiled to myself, so she thought of me as the sacrificial lamb used to draw out whatever was behind the attack. I decided not to disillusion her. After all, being underestimated as just another norm had worked in my favor more than once in the past. She did drive an awful point home to my mind, someone would need to tell what happened to Nate to his wife and son. Likely enough that job would fall to me. Suddenly I felt much, much too sober
“I’ll be over at Helles House if you find anything worthwhile.” I turned and made my way back out of the store, Mara following… I could feel her animosity towards me rising. She didn’t like having to take her cues from somebody else, but she held her tongue, almost as if she were very practiced at keeping her rage to herself.
“So what’s at Helles House? Underground porn? Bum fights? What new investigative technique will you teach me now?” She followed me back out to the alley and opened the Shelby’s door.
“Alcohol… I need a drink.”
~ * ~
We drove about thirty to forty minutes north of Rashidi’s. As we passed the town limits, Mara’s eyes widened slightly. A wooden sign hung at the side of the road proclaiming “Welcome to the hamlet of Valhalla”.
“So desperate for a good beer we had to drive all the way to the afterlife to find it?” She pulled her jacket a little tighter around her to combat the chilly night.
“Yup, after this we’ll head west and hit Sleepy Hallow… the horseman owes me twenty dollars.” Traffic was light now that the sun had finally gone down. The tourists that come to see Kensico Cemetery usually were gone by nightfall. “I came down here a few years back to visit Lou Gehrig’s gravesite and found this place. Best drinks in the state.”
“Wouldn’t have pegged you as a baseball fan, Hunter.”
“I’m not so much, that was always Nate’s thing. I am a fan of perseverance, though. The man played over 2000 games straight without missing a single one. He got hit in the head and almost knocked unconscious and he still kept playing. We all should have something in our lives that pushes us that much.” We pulled up to the bar, parking in a small lot on the side of the building. I shot Mara a quick grin. “Not to mention he was the first guy put on a Wheaties box.”
The truth was in the age we lived in people kept theorizing and exhuming all the legends we grew up on. They would find that this one was a were, that one was a vamp, and this other one used magic to do his legendary deeds. I was just happy to find at least one legend that belonged to us normal people still. I pulled into the bar’s parking lot and got out. The night air smelled crisp, winter wasn’t too far away and the weather seemed to want to get to it.
Helles House was a humble enough looking place made of stone but some kind of flecks in the rock continuously caught the slightest light and gave the place an almost glowing appearance. The front doors were made of a thick wood that had a dark almost blood-red color to them. Into these double doors was a carved and engraved tree made of gold. I had once caught myself staring at the carving for almost fifteen minutes before a passerby tapped me on the shoulder wondering if I was okay.
Inside at times almost looked to me like some kind of hunting lodge. Over one of the doors in the bar was a carved wooden wolf with what looked like a stuffed eagle hanging right above it. Behind the bar, a large mural of a deer and a goat eating beneath an immense tree took up most of the wall. The ceiling was an intricate weave of interlocked golden discs that reflected light without any visible source supported by sturdy wooden poles. A very tall blonde woman stood behind the bar cleaning a mug, her face broke into a smile as she saw us enter.
“Ah Hunter, I had a feeling you would be showing up tonight so I closed up early.” She put the mug underneath a tap and pulled on what almost looked like a carved deer horn. Liquid flowed freely into the glass stein and she set the full drink out on the bar.
By the time we crossed the room and approached the bar two more full drinks joined the first. Despite having been drawn all from the same tap, each glass appeared to be filled with a different liquid.
“Thanks, Mist,” I said sitting down and lifting my drink to my lips. “Wasn’t much in the mood for company tonight anyway. This is Detective Specialist Mara Soto, she’s tagging along with me tonight.”
“Nice to meet you.” Mara took the seat next to me. “I guess since I’m here you could give me a beer.”
“Why don’t you try that out first, Detective.” Mist nudged one of the two remaining glasses towards her. Mara took an experimental sip, then another.
“Not bad, what is this?”
“It’s my own creation, as is everything just about everything served here. No standardized drink recipes allowed.” Mist lifted the third mug. “So Hunter, what are we drinking to tonight?”
“To Nate.”
“And other friends lost too soon.” Mara’s face was surprisingly somber as she raised her glass with mine.
“May they all find the peace they lacked in this world in the next one.” Mist joined her glass with ours and we all drank deeply. The drink had a honeyed quality that always seemed to be present to some extent in Mist’s concoctions. It went down easy and I quickly felt a warmth spreading through me. “Okay, tell me the tale of how Nathan Storm at last left this world.”
I told her everything that had happened since I had landed earlier that day. I couldn’t believe it was only a few hours since I had been forced to kill my friend. I refused to think like that, however… it was a were, a monster, that needed killing. Both women listened in silence to my recounting, Mist refilling our glasses halfway through.
“I’m so sorry, Hunter.” Mist started when I was done. “If there is something after this you have to believe Nate will be well taken care of. He was a good man. A true warrior in every sense of the word.”
“Yeah, I’m sure where he is there is nothing but flowing wine and luscious women. I just hope he leaves some for me when I arrive.” I raised my glass again before draining the rest of its contents.
“Ever the gentleman, I see,” Mara uttered sarcastically. “I hadn’t gotten the full story about your friend before. I am sorry about what happened, but you must know it had to be done. He was feral, if you didn’t stop him who knows how many people would have been hurt? He wouldn’t have wanted that to be the way people remember him.”
“Yeah… had to be done. No choice. Did what I had to do. Just makes it all better don’t it?” I stared at my empty glass, the answers certainly wouldn’t be found there but some days it was tempting to look.
“No… no, it really doesn’t. Nothing can truly erase blood once spilled, it stains us forever.” She sat in silence a little while, staring at the remains of her drink. “Well, then let’s get the sons of bitches that forced your hand. But you still haven’t explained to me how a video clerk is going to help us do that.”
“Well, Rashid isn’t just a clerk at some out-of-the-way shop that caters to a rather specialized clientele. He’s a theoretical physicist who has put much of his thinking into practice. He can literally look into other dimensions and even retrieve small items… like a DVD or the like. What we need him to do is take a close look at the dimensions only a couple steps off from ours.”
“He mentioned that same term, ‘steps’ What exactly does that mean?”
“How could I explain it in a way that would make sense to you?” I thought to myself out loud.
“Speak slowly and use small words like when Rashidi had to explain it to you.” Mist chirped in from behind us, picking up another of the heavy chairs and putting it on the table. The muscled Nordic woman hefted a chair in each hand and flipped them into position.
“Why thank you Mist, good to know there’s still a place a man can go to get his ego crushed if it’s getting out of control.”
“You know me, Hunter… I live to serve.” Mist mock curtsied as she finished up her cleanup of the common area and came back to join us at the bar.
“Say, do you still have that Rubik’s Cube that guy left here a while back?”
“Sure, it’s in the back, let me go see if I can find it.” Mist left out of one of the many doors off the main room of the bar. I had never quite understood why such a small place would need so many other areas to work in. A minute or so later she came back holding the small colored cube. Someone had been playing with it again and it was all a mess.
“Okay,” I started, moving the blocks of the cube. “Pretend like this is the universe.” I quickly started putting the sides back in order. I always had a knack for solving puzzles and the like. I may not hold any records but in just a few seconds the toy was back to its solved position.
“The universe is a forty-year-old puzzle game? Why does this not fill me with awe of the world we live in?”
“Haha, it’s just an example. This is our world, the choices that have been made since the beginning of time are unique to this timeline.” I shifted one of the layers on the block to the side. “This is a universe one step away. It’s almost identical to ours but for a few differences. Maybe in the last election, the other guy won for instance.”
I turned the block again, mixing the colors just a little more. “This is what we would call a second step…. Maybe in this universe, the two people running for office were completely different.” I shifted the block again. “Here we don’t even live under a democracy.” Another turn. “Each step we get away the more different the worlds become. Sometimes to the point where you can’t even recognize anything. Heck, there are even worlds where there are no alternaturals at all, everyone is normal.”
“No one is normal,” Mara stated calmly. “Everyone is something.”
“Plenty of people are normal, me, Mist here… unless you think we’re secretly some kind of alter.”
“Wouldn’t that be a kick?” Mist beamed a smile at me. “I could be a Naga… or a succubus… always liked flying.”
“Harrumph… maybe you can get one of those weird petting zoos to bring over some flying horses for your next birthday party.” I put the cube back to its starting configuration.
“That still doesn’t explain why you think Rashidi can help us.”
“It’s pretty simple, Mara… he’ll look at a grouping of universes only a step or two off from ours and make note of where the weres came from the night of the attack. Some will be different, heck, some there won’t even have been an attack. A clear majority of the closest universes clustered with ours should allow him to follow a trend that could at least give us a starting point.” I looked down at the bar and lowered my voice. “Or give us a lead that tells us nothing and wastes a few days looking into it.”
“But that’s cheating. What happened to the investigation, leg work, gathering clues… you know detective work?”
“That’s winning, Mara. Honestly, I don’t give a damn about what I need to get there as long as I make it. I‘ll leave the detecting to real detectives.” My phone rang, it was Rashidi, hopefully with good news. I hit the answer button.
“My friend, I have found what you need. It looks like I can narrow your search at least a bit. There is a 78.2% trend of the attacks originating from a particular block and a 52.6% chance they originated from a particular address.”
“Great, give me what you got.” He rattled off some addresses fairly close to what Nate had already discovered. From what little I gathered of his notes he may have only been a few blocks away. No wonder he pissed someone off, another day or two he probably would have broken the whole case wide open. “Alright, we can be there in half an hour.”