Death Bringer

Detective Inspector Harris smiled good-naturedly as he sat down. “Other Inspector?”

“The one who just left.”

“Hmm? Who was that, then?”

“Detective Inspector Me.”

“Detective Inspector You?”

“No, Me. That’s his … He said that’s his name. You just passed him. He was with a girl on work experience and a boy with spiky hair.”

Harris blinked at him. “I didn’t pass anyone, Mr Dunne, and I’m the only Detective Inspector on duty right now.”

Kenny stared at him. “Then … then who the hell was I just speaking to?”

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alkyrie Cain cradled her little sister in her arms and hoped to God she’d get through the day without being splattered with regurgitated baby milk. She’d barely made it home from the police station in time to get changed, and one top had already been rendered unwearable before they’d even left the house. It had been a nice top, too. It had really gone with her jeans.

“Please,” she whispered to little Alice, “do not throw up on me.”

Alice watched her with big blue eyes, but wasn’t promising anything.

Squinting slightly against the sun, Valkyrie glanced back into the church. Alice wasn’t the only one who had just been christened today, so the place was full of chatting, laughing families with camcorders, saving every gurgle and wail. She may have been biased, but it was Valkyrie’s sincere opinion that none of the other three babies were half as cute as her three-month-old sister. They just didn’t measure up where it counted. It was sad, really. Those babies had already lost the cuteness war and they wouldn’t even know it for years to come. A real tragedy.

She looked down at her sister. “You don’t do much, do you? You’re fairly limited, as far as most things go. Mum says I have to keep talking to you, to get you used to my voice. So, well, I suppose I’ll keep talking. There are two of me, you know. There’s me, the real me, and then there’s my reflection. The reflection looks like me, and talks like me, and acts like me, but it isn’t me. It steps out of my mirror and goes to school and does my homework and, yes, sometimes it babysits you. And I don’t like that. I don’t like leaving you in the care of something that has no emotions, but I’m a busy girl. Yes I am.

“When you’re a bit older, we’re going to read you stories about princesses and wizards and magic, and we’re going to let you believe, for a few years, that some magic is real. And then, this is the sucky bit, we’re going to tell you that most magic isn’t real. We’re going to tell you that people can’t fly and they can’t turn each other into toads and that there are no magical, mystical monsters. Between you and me, though, that’s the big lie. There is magic, people can fly, there are monsters … I’m not sure about the turning each other into toads bit, though. But who’d want that anyway? That’d be gross.”

Valkyrie started swaying the top half of her body slightly as she walked in a circle. “Who’s a cutie? Who’s a cutie? You are, that’s who. You’re a cutie. And who’s sounding pretty dim-witted right now? That’d be me, wouldn’t it? Yes, it would.”

She looked down, saw the baby gazing up, and she laughed. “Oh God you’re adorable. I’d ask you to stay like this for ever but, you know, that’d be a little awkward. Especially when you’re old enough to go out on dates.

“We have a weird family, do you know that? You’ve probably already noticed. Mum’s normal enough, in her own way. But when she gets talking to Dad, a different side to her comes out – an immensely silly side. He’s a bad influence on her, that’s what he is. Because our dad is an oddball. Mm-hmm. As odd as they come. Uncle Fergus is odd too, but not in a nice way. He’s just mean all the time. It’s a shame you never got to meet Gordon. You’d have liked Gordon. He was a cool uncle.” She kissed the baby’s cheek and kept her head down. “Want to know a secret?” she whispered. “Magic runs in our family. You might be magic. Someday you might be able to do all the things I can do. Someday you might have to take a new name, like I did. Or you might not. But I don’t know if I want that for you. Being normal isn’t so bad, once you’ve seen the other side. I know it wouldn’t be fair if I kept this from you, but I don’t want you getting hurt. Do you understand me? Something like that, it’d kill me.”

The baby reached out, took a small handful of Valkyrie’s hair.

“I’m glad we understand each other. For someone with such a small brain, you’re very smart, you know that?”

Alice gurgled.

Valkyrie took her baby sister back inside the church, made her way over towards her folks. Her aunt emerged from the crowd, hair pulled back off her face, pinching it tight. It was not a good look.

“Hello Stephanie,” Beryl said. “You’re holding her wrong.”

“She seems pretty comfortable,” Valkyrie responded, making sure she said it politely.

Beryl reached out thin hands. “No no no, let me show you.” But, as usual, Alice’s spider-sense picked up the incoming threat and she turned her head, saw Beryl’s suddenly smiling face and wailed. Beryl recoiled sharply, fingers twitching. When their aunt had retreated to an acceptable distance, Alice stopped wailing and glomped her gums on to a button on Valkyrie’s top.

“She’s been grumpy all day,” Valkyrie lied, pleased with how things had turned out. Beryl made a noise in her throat, obviously unimpressed with her brand-new niece. Valkyrie jerked her head back slightly. “Mum and Dad are over there,” she said. “They’ve been wanting to talk to you. Mum said earlier what a lovely dress you’re wearing.”

Beryl’s eyebrows wriggled like two tiny tapeworms. “This?” she said. “But I’ve had this for years.”

It was a beige dress that would have looked better on an eighty-year-old. Any eighty-year-old, man or woman.

“I think you’ve really grown into it,” Valkyrie said.

“I always thought it was a little shapeless.”

Valkyrie resisted the urge to say that was what she meant.

Beryl broke off the conversation as she usually did, without any warning whatsoever and with her husband trailing after her. Hilariously, Fergus nodded to the baby as he passed, as if Alice was going to nod back, but he reserved a look akin to a glare for Valkyrie. She hadn’t a clue what that was about.

She watched Carol and Crystal walk towards her, and prepared herself for the onslaught to come. In the past, she would have been expecting poorly thought-out taunts and flatly executed jibes from her cousins at a time like this. These days, unfortunately, it was a whole lot worse.

“Hi Valkyrie,” Carol whispered.

Crystal jabbed Carol with an elbow. “Don’t call her that!”

Carol glared. “I whispered it. No one else could hear.”

“You still shouldn’t call her that! Call her Stephanie!”

A few more precious moments of life were sucked away from Valkyrie’s grasp, never to be seen again.

“Fine,” Carol said, not looking pleased. “Hello, Stephanie. How are you?”

“I’m doing good,” Valkyrie replied, talking quickly in an effort to hijack the conversation and steer it towards calm and unexceptional waters. “How are you guys? How’s college? Looking forward to the summer holidays? Crystal, I love your shoes. Your feet fit really well into them. Doesn’t Alice look adorable?”

She turned slightly so that they could see the baby. They both murmured something about cuteness, and then it was as if Alice didn’t even exist.

“We were thinking,” Carol said, and both twins stepped closer so they wouldn’t be overheard. “You know the way you said we were too short to learn magic? Well, we’re not sure that we are. You started to learn magic when you were shorter than we are now, didn’t you? And also, elves.”

Valkyrie blinked. “I’m sorry?”

“Elves,” said Crystal. “You know, with the pointy ears? They’re pretty small, aren’t they? I know in some movies they’re regular-sized, but mostly elves are small, and they can do magic.”

“Uh, elves aren’t real,” Valkyrie said.

Carol sighed at her sister. “Told you.”

Crystal glared back, then looked again at Valkyrie. “Why aren’t they real?”

“I’m not sure I can, uh, answer that.”

Crystal looked confused. “What about goblins?”

“Oh,” Valkyrie said. “Yeah, OK, goblins exist. Right, listen, it’s not a height thing, it’s a danger thing. The fact is it isn’t safe. I’ve been beaten up more times than I can count. I’ve had bones broken and teeth broken and five months ago I was technically dead for half a day. I even had an autopsy done on me.”