Author's Note:
This story is from Angie’s point of view and takes place just after the events of Book One of the Dead Body Girl series. Melancholy Dreams begins the moment Angie leaves Kari in the police station bathroom towards the end of the first Dead Body Girl book. Please enjoy.
I stormed out of the bathroom on a mission. First stop, tear that idiot Noah a new one!
I mean, seriously?!
I get that they’re young and he’s horny as hell, but did they really need to get going like a couple of rabbits while we were under police protection? We don’t even know where we are going to be and what we are going to do. This investigation could last weeks. We could end up having to live out of a safe house, and all Kari and Noah were concerned about is jumping each other’s bones!
This is crazy.
And now Kari needs to go to the hospital be cause Noah doesn’t know how to keep his junk in his trunk!
Oh, there!
There’s the little shit now.
I blitzed over and said hello with my fist in his gut.
“Hey Noah.”
Noah was doubled over and gagged, his voice a little squeaky.
“Angie?”
I bared my teeth at him in a mock smile.
“Have a little fun with Kari lately?”
Still doubled over, he coughed and gasped.
“Huh?”
I bent way over, like waaaaaaay over, because Noah’s short as hell, to growl in his ear.
“Kari’s currently in the Lady’s room in pain and needs to go see a doctor because of you. Happy?”
Noah slowly raised his weird cherry bomb red eyes to me.
“What?”
Before I could add any details, he bolted off to the restrooms down the hall.
I let the little shit run off.
He should see the results of his work. I’m going to love seeing him explain this to Jiro.
One of the twins sidled up to me. I have no clue which one, I’ve never been able to tell them apart.
“Where’s he going?”
I shrugged.
“To go be with Kari.”
The teen boy turned to frown out me.
“Where’s Kari?”
I returned his frown.
“In the bathroom, what does it matter?”
His voice became stiffer, colder.
“You left her with another police officer, right?”
I shrugged again.
“We’re in the station, she’s in the restroom, what does it matter?”
But even as I was saying the words alarm bells were already ringing.
During questioning, wasn’t that the same kind of thing every adult says, just after their child goes missing?
We had been told to not ever be out of sight of someone. Buddy up, go everywhere in groups or at least pairs. We had been told this. . .
Noah’s frantic footsteps were already racing back to us.
“Angie, where’s Kari!”
My face felt stiff.
“I-I already told you. She’s in the restroom. Right down that hall.”
Noah was nervously shaking his head, too quick.
“No, no she’s not.”
A sinking feeling lurched in my stomach.
“Sh-she’s right there.”
Noah was still shaking his head.
“I looked everywhere, under the counter, in all the stalls. There’s no one there.”
The twin next to me spoke just above a whisper, but I could still hear the dread.
“Oh gods.”
Yeah.
The teen was looking a little desperate.
“Maybe she left the bathroom, have you looked around the area?”
No, that didn’t sound right. Kari could barely move. She wouldn’t be able to walk out of that bathroom on her own.
Noah nodded once at the twin’s words and sprinted back the way he had just come, yelling over his shoulder.
“I’ll check down the hall in the direction of the vending machines, go tell everyone to start looking.”
The twin jogged a few paces away to pass the word and to start the search for Kari. Even from across the waiting area I could hear the out burst from his clone.
“What? How is she missing?!”
“. . . . . .”
“What do you mean Angie left her alone?”
For a long while it was chaos in the station. First the building was put on total lock down, all in coming patrols were rerouted to other stations. All available personnel in the building were but on the search. It took over an hour. We looked everywhere. In storage areas, in the lock up, in the loading bay, in every office and every interrogation room. Someone even checked the ventilation ducts, because she was small enough that she just might fit in one.
She simply wasn’t here.
Now it had moved on to the investigation. The mage techs were still in the restroom casting reveal spells to bring up what ever evidence they could find.
The problem was that it was a public bathroom. Dozens upon dozens of people had been through there. Sorting through all the fingerprints, footprints, and trace residues was going to be a nightmare.
My cousin-in-law, Detective Marion O’Shanney was the lead investigator on the case. She was a good police witch, had a level head, and knew her spells.
She sighed and scratched her long hooked nose.
“Okay, Ange, let’s go over this again.”
I was sitting on the edge of a desk in the cubical farm, leaned my head back, and stared at the ceiling for a moment and sighed myself.
“We’ve already gone over this. I screwed up okay? I know a screwed up.”
Marion sounded tired, drained.
“I’m not looking to blame anyone, I just want to know if you saw anything that could help us find her, and nail this bastard.”
I shook my head.
I don’t know what she expected me to say. That I saw a shadow lurking in the corner waiting to snatch Kari away? That I heard the maniacal laugh of a madman as I ran off leaving Kari defenseless? That I felt the chill of evil magic floating in the air?
I didn’t.
I didn’t see, or hear, or feel anything.
I dipped my head back down to look at her.
“What have the techs said?”
Marion shook her head.
“There are traces of magic in the restroom, but they’re all jumbled up. It could be our guy, or it could have been that a group of pissed off magic users stopped by the Lady’s to powder their noses. We don’t know.”
Unusual trace magic? Shit, that wasn’t good.
I gritted my teeth and pushed on.
“Any signs of a struggle.
Marion shook her head and shrugged.
“No, but that might not mean anything. He might have struck too fast for her to struggle.”
My stomach lurched again.
So we’re already assuming that Kari’s been taken by a serial killer?
The smart, logical, by the book part of my brain pointed out that it was kind of obvious, that of course she’s been taken. It’s likely she’s already dead.
The rest of me just couldn’t believe it.
This was Kari we’re talking about here. She’s an idiot. She screws up all the time. She’s lazy, impulsive, manipulative, and a loud mouth.
Things like getting murdered by a serial killer don’t happen to her.
Surely we’ll find her asleep in some weird location that no one thought of looking into. Like some stray cat that couldn’t give a damn what anyone else wanted.
And when we found her, she wouldn’t even be sorry. She would just yawn and stretch and demand some food. Because that girl is always hungry.
Marion was still talking, but I was only half listening. Until she said something that had me doing a double take.
“W-what was that?”
Marion looked up from the notes she was reading on her phone.
“Oh I said, at least we know she isn’t dead yet.”
My eyes got wide and a tiny thread of relief course through me.
“You found her?”
My cousin looked confused and shook her head.
“No. We just know that if all of you are still up and running, than she has to be alive.”
I blinked at her, not understanding for a long moment.
Oh, right. We’re her zombies. Once she dies, her magic goes with her, and we all go back to being corpses.
We all live such normal lives, I almost never even think about it nowadays. I mean, it’s not like we were some shambling dead like in the movies. We were all just regular people. It’s hard to remember that the only thing keeping us that way is Kari’s magic.
Marion nodded to me.
“Okay, well thanks for your time Ange. Let me know if you can think of anything else, and I’ll keep you posted. We’re looking into the magi-recording to see if the camera’s caught anything, but unfortunately there’s none in the restroom. Probably the reason why he grabbed her there.”
I nodded, shook her hand, and headed back to the group huddled in the waiting area.
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