TANSTAV part 30

Chapter Nine
In which we discover the horrible truth, and then I die

Calla showed Xen next; then we all looked at each other.

"I didn't see this coming," I finally said.  "Did you?"

Both girls shook their heads.  Though, as I thought about it, it began to make more sense.  I remembered that when I had been on the Skald property, I had caught a familiar scent in the air, before Jessup’s footprints distracted me.  It was only now that I recalled whose smell it had been: Fleming’s (yes, it was Fleming.  I congratulate you if you were able to successfully guess that it was him).  There was only one logical explanation for why he had been at the crime scene just as it was being committed, and I was staring it in the face.

“So,” asked Calla, “what do we do now?”

“We confront him,” I replied.  “We’re not the official police, but we can still capture him and bring him in.”

"Okay."

However, for several moments, we just sat there in silence.  We were all a little...hesitant to make the first move.  Not that we were scared or anything.  It was just that actually confronting this guy made us a tad nervous.  In the end, I was the first to get up.  And, leaving the evidence there, we exited the forensics room, and went out into the main lobby.

I saw Morty sitting at his desk, typing on his computer, bobbing his head in time with whatever music was playing through his iPod.

"Hi, Tristan," he said, looking up.

"Hey.  How're things going?"

"Not too bad.  Only a minimal amount of killings, thefts, etc. this week.  Xen, are you okay?”

“I’m fine, thanks.”

“Good.  How's your missing person investigation going, Tristan?”

"I might have a lead.  I just need to get help from-" I glanced around the station.  "Where's Fleming?"

"He hasn't been in.  Apparently he got in an accident of some kind, had to stay home."

I and Xen both tried not to snort.  Oh, he’d gotten in an accident, all right.  If you called being stabbed with a palette knife by a young woman trying to defend herself against you an accident.

Unconcerned, and apparently not even curious as to why we wanted Fleming, the Reaper began playing solitaire on the computer.

“Thanks,” I said as we went away.  He grunted slightly.

Fleming lived on the southeast side of Styxburg, at 666 Shelley Avenue.  It would be easiest to get there by flying, but there was the problem of Calla, who couldn't fly, and also that there seemed to be a storm coming; to fly in that kind of weather would be potentially suicidal.  So we took the bus.  It was a rather long drive, which gave me time to think that maybe we should have gotten police backup, since this guy was obviously dangerous.  Well, Morty knew where we were going...then I remembered that he had been playing solitaire. Once he got absorbed in a card game, he had a tendency to temporarily forget anything that had been said to him in the last twenty minutes.  It was a bad habit that Ishida had talked to him about several times, and that might have gotten him kicked out of the police force if he weren't so good at what he did.  No, we couldn't expect any help from him.

We got off the bus about a block down the street from our destination, just to be safe.  Then I pulled out my phone, and made a quick call.  I didn't have long to wait.

"Wormwood, what is it?" asked Ishida grumpily.

"I'm pretty sure I'm about to capture a dangerous criminal who has kidnapped at least two people."

"What?!  WHO?!"  I heard whooshing noises through the receiver that sounded a lot like two flames spurting from the nostrils of an alarmed police chief.

"Well, you're not going to believe this, but it's-"

My phone flew out of my hand, and smashed itself to pieces on the sidewalk.  Dang, that was the second one that had been destroyed on the job!  I looked at the others in alarm, when my attention was all at once drawn to a small man who had appeared just in front of us, his arm and shoulder wrapped in bandages, but with a splatter gun in his good hand, pointed at me (Note: a splatter gun is a very nasty weapon invented during our version of the Cold War, designed to produce whatever amount of bullets the shooter wants to hit his [just for argument's sake, let's say it's a him] target[s], and upon impact, does a small explosion from inside the body, causing a very nasty, grisly death if the target is alive.  The splatter bullets are able to pierce even gargoyle hide, making them particularly dangerous).

"I presume you know what this is, and what it does," sneered Fleming, in a voice that was very different from his typical whiny, prissy tones.  "So I hope none of you will try to be a hero.  Even if you had such thoughts, my, shall we say, operative is here as well."  He gestured with the gun; we turned to see Jessup, eyes glazed, standing behind us, also wielding a splatter gun.

"Unfortunately, my hypnotism is only effective on demons.  So I am forced to deal with you in this unsophisticated manner.  Please come with us (as if we had any choice).  You are just in time to witness my glory!"