Isla, Lost in Translation

Greg smiled at me. It was small and his glowing eyes softened in a way that made all my organs want to burst out of my ribs that stupid, handsome, distracted, idiot.

He was completely missing the werewolf charging at him.

"Watch out!" I screamed, mouth dry.

Frowning, his head flicked back to Rocco's monstrous shape. The wolf growled. His slobbering jaw practically unhinged as it opened wide enough to swallow Greg's entire torso. Rocco dug his claws into the pavement, audibly tearing up concrete, as he thrust himself forward—those amber eyes locked on mine.

Rocco leapt. Claws outstretched. Drooling jaws open wide enough for me to stare down his slobbering gullet soaring upward—

"Fang this."

Shot rang out before I even saw Greg's arm move.

The wolf, Rocco, loosed one last pathetic howl, and fell.

Lily and I ducked, on instinct, clutching each other for sturdiness.

Both the barrel and werewolf's chest smoked. While Greg's hand holding the gun was statuesque, Rocco convulsed. Blood gushed from his chest, puddling onto the patio thick as pudding. As the pool widened, his mass shrank. Fur shed in shaggy lumps. Rough, animal skin melted away, leaving him hairless and smooth and totally naked (yuck). Bones cracked as his limbs all shortened and twisted to passably human shapes. Pointed ears rounded out. Teeth blunted. Tail shriveled and wilted off his behind. Rocco's snout crumpled to resemble that of a pug's before the fur fell from his cheeks, leaving only his human beard behind.

Lily gasped beside me. "Oh my—is he dead?"

She threw her upper half out the window for a better look, my hands on her the only anchor.

"You alright?" Greg called up, looking tired and holstering his gun. "Yeah? You sure?"

No, not in the least bit, but apparently, I was nodding.

I had Lily. I'd found her. Found my mess. My mess I needed to fix. She was right here, trembling in my arms.

She could, just, you know, fall. It wouldn't be difficult for her, already half hung out the window. Give her just a little nudge and let her tumble. Two stories. Onto pavement. Watch her head pop like a watermelon. Break beyond the ability to pop up and keep on talking. It's not like she wasn't already dead, so it wouldn't really be murder. More of a course correction. Or, better yet, a feral werewolf attack. Just look at the wound in her side! Greg could've just stumbled across the scene while working a case. Had to put the mutt down after what he did to this poor, defenseless, sweet barista.

I allowed my grip on Lily's sweater to loosen—but, nah, that idea was stupid. You can't just splat somebody, girlfriend, that's absurd, she'd probably bounce right off the pavement anyway, get a grip on yourself. And her sweater. Oh balls, shit, get a tighter grip on her sweater.

Lily wiggled, craning her neck down, and that, turns out, was all it took.

Slippery fish toppled out.

"Shit," I grumbled, instinctively reaching for that stupid fluffy sweater to pull her back inside. I wasn't quick enough.

Lily screamed as she fell.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. I didn't mean it. I didn't mean to drop her. I squeezed my eyes shut. You know, cause I'm a cowardly skank who can't even watch myself clean up my own messes, I guess.

She landed with a soft thump and a grunt.

Opening my eyes, one wary lid at a time, I spotted that Greg had caught her, all fairytale princess style. Because of course he did.

"Lily Perez?" he said, gingerly.

"Put me down!"

He did. Quickly. Awkwardly. Scrunched his nose and pulled a sour face as he surveyed her, blue gaze lingering a little too long on her ragged side, hidden behind wool. Troll balls.

Lily stumbled to her feet, nearly stomping over Rocco's body. She froze. Probably more from the shock than chill. She just stared at Rocco, arms wrapped what looked painfully tight around herself. Didn't even bother to pull away the hair stuck to her lip.

"Yeah, sorry. Hey, hey, Ms. Perez? You okay? You hurt?" Greg tapped her on the shoulder. "Speak to me. Did he get you?"

Still staring at the body, Lily shook her head.

Greg bit his lip. Still resting his palm on the barista, he looked back up at me. He gestured for me to join them with a wave.

I nodded back.

The ghost of the old woman – presumably the elderly former Momma Cabroni – watched me from the end of the hall as I clamored through the mess we'd made of her home. She said nothing and didn't blink. I did my best not to make eye contact, hugging the wall as I passed her literal deathbed, careful to maintain a decent distance for my anklet. My candles still flickered on their makeshift altar. Lucky Rocco didn't knock them over in his rampage.

I paused. Man, all my stuff. The crystals and my tarot deck and the antique spirit board. My sisters got me that board. I wanted it back. But I'd never make a climb over two corpses to retrieve it without bringing the Magistrate to us. And they'd certainly confiscate my crap once they did arrive.

"Nards," I muttered, flinging myself off the wall and down the hall. It's just stuff. Don't think any of it could really be traced back to me, at least.

Cold, night air slapped me in the face. A gentle slap. Not a hard slap. A foreplay kind of slap that ended with a caring hand cupped against your cheek—oh, that was just Greg touching me. He moved so quick. I was barely even outside, and he had my face cradled in his hands, turning my cheeks side to side, studying me. He removed a cold hand and patted my shoulders, my hips, waist, trailing a path back up to my cheek again.

"You hurt?" he breathed against my forehead. "Did he scratch you? Bite you?"

Shook my head. "That's your job, cowboy."

He tried to hide that little smirk from me. Tried and failed. But then Greg caught my eyeline creeping over his shoulder to Rocco's unmoving form and tapped the gun still hot in his holster.

"Silver bullets. Told you it had its uses."

"Are you okay?" I asked.

He blinked, as if surprised I'd asked. "I'll unlive."

"Good. Where the tits were you?" I asked, valiantly trying to hammer down the unfiltered joy that tickled my chest when he touched me so softly. "Thought you'd follow me."

"I can't get in! No invite! And you said he wasn't supposed to be home! See, this is what happens when you don't have a plan—ah, what in the hell happened?"

"Is he dead!" Lily's shrill cry cut through night louder than the gun. She nudged Rocco's body with her toes. "Did you kill him?"

Greg let me go.

Balls, Lily, couldn't you see we were having a moment?

My vamp tentatively crouched beside the naked werewolf (me? Oh, I kept my six feet of distance, just in case). Those leather shoes splashed a bit in the quickly spreading blood puddle. He placed two fingers against Rocco's throat. Greg seemed to swallow a gag as he did. After a moment, he carefully removed those nimble fingers and shook his head at Lily.

I mean. The massive hole blasted through the guy's chest could've told us all that. The wound still sizzled.

And yet... I whipped my head around, peering into every shadowy corner of the small yard. He wasn't here. The ghost of him, that is. Was that a good sign? Doubtful, with my luck.

"I'm sorry. I know you must care deeply for him," Greg said, studying the body. His fingers grazed against the Arabella tattoo on Rocco's wrist for a moment. "But on a full moon he's a danger to you, to us, to the whole neighborhood if he got out of the yard."

"He's not exactly an emotional support puppy every other day of the month either." I clapped my hands. "I'll, uh, give you a moment to, you know, say goodbye."

As Lily cautiously bent beside Rocco's body, I gestured Greg back over. Gunshots echoing in South Philly weren't a heck of an out of place occurrence, but it would certainly bring us unwanted attention. Human and otherwise. Probably fast. And while I still hadn't quite figured out how to clean up the mess I made of little ole Lily, Greg's wild west moves gave us a more pressing one to tidy.

"Okay Mr. Man-With-a-Thousand-Plans, what're we planning to do about the corpses on property?" I whispered. "I was thinking we toss him in the Schuylkill and call it a night, at least."

I braced myself. Waited for Greg's torrent of protests to just how unprofessional that would be, Isla. How deeply wrong. We should report this. The Magistrate. Blah blah blah I'm a good guy who does good things and better off not slumming it with you blah blah blah.

Greg ran a hand through his hair. "Yeah, obviously, but Lily—"

He... did he just... did Greg just agree with me on the topic of disposing evidence? Yeah, I think he did. Did that wildly turn me on? Oh, heck yeah, I think it did.

"Yeah? Obviously? Who are you and what've you done with Good Guy Greggy?"

"I shot a Pack member," he hissed through his teeth. "I'm not going down for that."

For you. Is what I heard. I shot a Pack member and wasn't going down for you.

Greg's brows furrowed. "Did you say corpses?"

"Yeah, so," I counted on my fingers, "we've got Rocco, you know, here. His momma, I think, on a bed inside. And—"

"She died naturally," shouted Lily. "She was very sick."

"Mrs. Cabroni—the one that's his wife—mentioned that," mumbled Greg.

"And!" I raised my volume just a smidge. "Ding, ding, ding, we found your ex-boss's ex-wife's missing skeletal remains! Neat."

And all my stolen crap I would absolutely be thrown in magic-jail for being caught handling, but whatever, we'll get to that bit. Eventually.

"Knew it!" said Greg.

"You work for Dmitri?" said Lily, breathless.

"No, not anymore," Greg scrambled to fetch a business card from his wallet and offer it to her. She took it with cautious fingers. "My name's Greg Vasilescu, I'm a private eye. Dmitri hired me to find you, but I'm not here because of him. And you're not in any kind of trouble, promise. I—Madame Margherita—has been worried about you."

Her eyes darted from Greg to me to Rocco and back again, face twisted in some unreadable expression.

Way to blow my spot, Greg. Girlfriend over here and I didn't exactly part on fab terms.

"It's about... "

Killing you. Fixing my mess. Undoing the curse that brought you back to life for good. Look at you, you pathetic little rag doll. I couldn't undo it. I just couldn't. Poor thing didn't deserve any of this fucked up mess. But, damn it, she couldn't just go either. Not without me at least, I don't know, explaining a few things. Some Dos and Don'ts for the undead. Ugh, where was the Guidebook for the Unexpectedly Demised when I actually needed it?

I sucked in a deep breath and gestured to her general hip area. "Del tuo incidente— accidente! We need parlare in privato—uh, hablar en privado about la Divination Deal. Por favor."

"Huh?"

Okay I know I don't technically speak Spanish, but I'm not unintelligible. My Italian will do. In a pinch. We limped along perfectly fine in our language salad the other night!

Greg, obviously noticing this conversation was stalled on the track, raised his hand. "Ms. Perez. You and Mr. Cabroni were—"

Lily pounced on me. Practically knocked the wind out of my lungs. "Please don't bring him back! Not like you did with me, please! It was horrible! He kept me prisoner!"

"What was that?" yelped Greg.

Warts on a gremlin's green ball sack! Pivot. Pivot, pivot, pivot.

I threw an arm over Lily. "He kept her prisoner, Greg... whoa, seriously?"

Been busy. Rocco had said. Busy with what, keeping a girl chained in his basement?

"I was kidnapped." She cried against my shoulder. "The werewolf bug—Rocco. He took me. Forced me to use those spell books. And your things."

"Spell books?" Greg said. "Your things?"

"Not important. Rocco kidnapped you, you said?"

"What about these books?"

"Oh, yes!" Lily wailed. "It was wretched!"

Lily thrust herself out from under my arm and practically flopped into Greg's. The vamp squirmed and just about turned green from the obvious discomfort, halfheartedly rubbing her on the back and mumbling awkward there, theres and you're okays. I curled my hands into fists to keep from pulling her out of his grip before those cool hands ventured too close to the gaping hole in the side of her gut. Grabbing her would look pretty sus, wouldn't it?

Lily twisted her neck around to face me. Looked like it twisted a little too far to be in the realm of comfortable. Or natural. Reminded me of Grumpkin. "He was so angry that I went to see you, for D-dmitri, h-he said if that vampire's trollop was a part of me, then I needed to cut her out!"

Trollop? Rocco used the word trollop?

Fat, gooey tears rolled clumsily down Lily's cheeks. "Rocco finally refused to share me with anyone. Not Dmitri, and especially not with her. He—he tried to force me to tear my own soul in twain. Claimed whatever part of me was h-her, had to go b-b-back in those bones like it would make me—make her good as new— so that only his Lily would remain in this body! B-b-but I am his Lily!"

I watched Greg's face shift over the top of Lily's head; his cute nose scrunched at twain.

"Ms. Perez," he said, "I think I just need to clarify, something, here," Greg gestured between myself and him, "for us. Are you—or, rather, do you believe yourself to be the reincarnation of Lady Rosemond Mary Favichia?"

"Nee Hotstrings," I added.

"Hastings."

"Bloody hell, noooooo!" Lily keened in a glass breaking pitch. "Nobody can be me but meeee!"

Greg winced.

I rubbed my ear. "Told you. Not a thing."

Something irked me about Lily's literal sob story. Seriously, Greg's cardigan was going to be ruined with snot. But her tale gave me a queasy feeling. Thick and sloshing heavily around in my belly. There was something, I don't know, missing. Holes needing to be plugged. Not glaring. But if I couldn't find them, they'd still sink the boat.

Maybe I was just too focused on that hole in her torso.

"But if that were p-p-possible," she sniffled into the back of her hand. Greg offered up his own sleeve. Unwise, cause she took it. Blew her honker right in the crook of his elbow. "For a soul to be in the wrong body, can a spell like that, to undo it, even be done? You would know, wouldn't you?"

Fuck.

"No," I blurted. My hands trembled as I lit a cigarette. The nicotine craving smacked so hard, I hadn't even been paying attention to my fingers fiddling with the pack in my coat. "You got the wrong Madame."

"But your spell, the P-Palm Reader's Bargain?"

Did I not just try to more slyly talk to her about her stupid 'deal'? Come on girl, pay attention. But in fairness, she was still mixing up my coded menu. That night in my parlor she asked for the Palm Reader's Bargain when she meant Divination Deal. The former was a request to reanimate a deceased pet. The latter a request to conjure a specific spirit.

Although, I guess she did get the Bargain. Just wasn't on a schnauzer.

I took a long drag from my cigarette. She never did answer when I asked who referred her to me.

Fucking Rocco.

Greg was looking at me. No, not just looking. Staring. Glowering? Couldn't think of an English word big enough, cold enough, to fit that look. And you know what, my great grandmas would be doubly disappointed I couldn't think of one in any language.

"What did she mean when she asked you not to bring Cabroni back, like you did with her, Isla?" asked Greg, voice low and even.

"Nothing!" I blew smoke in his face as I lied. I couldn't stop it. The lie scooped that nauseous feeling out of my belly and left me hollowed. "This is a misunderstanding."

"It brings things back, doesn't it?" Lily continued. "Could it really tear my soul from this body and put me in another? Because I've tried, for him, I didn't mean to do anything wrong, but he made me do it and I tried but I—I couldn't even fix this."

"No, wait a sec, Lily, you got it all mixed up!"

"You said the dead deserve their rest," she lifted the hem of her sweater. The wound, jagged and sticky, leered at me. "But do I deserve to be trapped like this?"

I choked on my cigarette. Smoke clogged my lungs and my head and my eyes and everything was churning in slow motion. I expected, any minute now, the ground to just kick up and shake me off like sand on a blanket.

"Fanging hell!" Greg tore off his cardigan and pressed it to Lily's side. "This a bite or a scratch?"

"No, that's not—Greg—"

He pulled the sweater away. Brown spots marred it, but it was obvious the wound wasn't bleeding. Wasn't fresh. Lily didn't even flinch.

"Is this from tonight? It smells—we need to get you to a hospital. One equipped for werewolf treatments."

Lily frowned. "No, thank you."

"She can't go to a hospital."

"I'm not fussing around with werewolf scratches, Isla. She might get turned, or rabies."

"Greg, I can explain—"

He scooped Lily up off the ground. Fairytale princess style again. How lucky for Lily. Guess she didn't feel lucky though, grunting and wriggling in his grip, whining several disgruntled put me downs.

"Hey, take it easy, you really shouldn't be standing."

Greg needed to stop. I had one chance. This one chance to be alone with Lily. To fix this. Sort of. Somehow. Enough to keep me out of prison, at least. Just had to talk to her. Scare her if I had to, like I did the night she hired me, I don't know how, didn't care, I was making this up as I went along. And, hey, I guess things weren't going so terribly yet (I made a point of not looking at Rocco's dead body).

But I couldn't do anything if Greg didn't cooperate.

Why'd he have to go and be so noble, damnit? It was condemning me.

My spine ached. A pressure was wringing me, rippling across my bones, rising like the tide. It pressed on my every muscle. Strangled my nerves. Wormed beneath my flesh. It formed a lump in my throat. A heavy ball, hot and greasy and bubbling out my mouth.

"Greg, stop, put her down!"

He stopped.

And he dropped her.

Lily yelped when her ass plopped onto the pavement.

Okay, I expected a little more gentlemanly of a move, but fine.

"I'm so sorry!" said Greg.

He crouched down, offering her a hand.

Lily slapped it away. "Get your hands off me!"

"Don't touch her, Greg."

The vampire froze again. Fingers hovered inches from Lily's elbow.

I offered Lily an arm instead, which she used to yank herself back up onto her feet.

Greg stared at Lily taking shelter behind me. He flexed his fingers. Touched his arms. Lifted one foot and took a careful, tentative step forward, like he was unsure if his legs would carry him.

Lily shuffled a step back.

My lips trembled. "Greg, you have to stop. You can't touch her, okay? Don't even get close to her. You're not taking her to a hospital because she isn't here. Got it?"

Again, Greg's body seemed to shudder and freeze, mid-step. His outstretched leg jerked backwards, landing in its original position and rooting him to the pavement. It reminded me of the night we met. When I told him he was unwelcome in my apartment.

In that same moment Lily gasped.

And bolted.

Right back into the house come on give me a break!

"The fuck you going?" I yelled.

"Isla," Greg's voice was gravelly. "What did you do?"

My muscles clenched. A twitch coursed through my own shoulder. Aching and tight. What I do? I didn't know. Everything felt... tingly. The pressure building on my spine had been released the moment I gave him the command. It coated my tongue in a velvety fuzz. Like mold.

I shook my head.

Annnd course that's when Lily came dashing back out on to the patio. She jumped right over a fallen lawn chair, landing clumsily and not at all like the dainty ballerina turned exotic dancer I imagined her to be.

He made to step forward, into Lily's space, but abruptly jerked away

She cracked the spine on the hefty grimoire.

"The fourth rite of necromancy, achieved through patronage of—it's smeared here, is that blood? The middle bit's missing, there's a part about exchanging blood, or maybe bone, that looks like it's written in blood, lots of blood. There's a note in the margins as well. Something about teeth? See, that's why I need your help! Something, something, blood and bone and Command of the Soulless Undead. How am I supposed to make bloody sense this? Can't you just properly teach me necromancy?"

Of course I could control and bend reanimated husks to my will, but vampires didn't count, right? Greg wasn't an empty corpse he was... Greg. Walking, talking, kissing, reverting to a state of death that set off my Contraband Curse in sunlight, Greg.

Oh no.

Nazira's voice tsked in my head. If one of them bit you.

"Is that a library book?" croaked Greg.

Hurt and confusion and disappointment all swam in Greg's blue eyes. It broke me. That's it. Get the duct tape. I was broke. All the pointy bits of my ribs speared straight through my lungs and muscle and meat and my stupid, stupid heart.

No. Keep it together girlfriend. You couldn't unravel now. Not so close to the finish line. You just couldn't. Buck up. Bottle all that broken mumbo jumbo right now. This was always part of the plan, wasn't it? (What plan?). Ditch the private dick when I no longer needed him. Keep my secret. Make sure he kept it too.

I gulped. "It's not as bad as it looks."