Chapter 22
I got back home a few minutes before midnight, ready to rip off Meredith’s arms and legs with my bare hands. That’s how great my night had been. Not only hadn’t I found my bag of treasures, or anywhere to hide them on the trolleys, but I’d traveled to some of the seediest and nastiest parts of the city.
Do you know what type of people you meet in these areas? I do now. I’d been groped, whistled at, harassed, and propositioned for sex – and that was just by the nicer people I’d encountered.
The nastier gremlins – they didn’t deserve to be called men or even people. In fact, I was going to think of them as animals, but that would be giving animals a very, very bad name and that’s not fair to all the decent animals in the world. – The nastier gremlins had done, or tried to do, some things which I refused to even think about. I was just lucky I’d brought my taser with me and I wasn’t afraid to use it.
I desperately needed a shower and sleep or else I’d be useless at my classes. Classes…classes…wasn’t there something I was supposed to do for one of my classes by tomorrow?
I stopped in my hallway, going through my different assignments, trying to remember what I’d forgotten and then it hit me: Logic project topic. I still hadn’t emailed him my confirmed topic idea.
But I had nine hours to do it. How long would it take to send him an email? A minute? I could do that right before I left for class.
Sleep, on the other hand, would not wait for anything.
I was happily dozing in the shower when a siren began to go off. I jolted awake, slapping the shower off even before I knew what I was doing.
What was that siren which blared through my apartment? And why was every light in the my place blinking?
The fire alarm! Of course!
Why hadn’t I realized? Panic ran through me, first at the thought of not getting out in time and then at the thought of my lovely jewels being melted and deformed in a blazing inferno.
But common sense quickly overcame my fears. The safe was fire resistant. Even if there was a fire, they wouldn’t get touched by the flames.
I grabbed a towel and tried to dry myself off even as I pulled on clothes. Once dressed, I jogged to my door, only stopping long enough to grab my tablet and phone. I paused at my alarm system, which I’d designed myself, and punched in the code which would allow real firefighters and berries to get in without injury. Anyone else trying to get in would receive a nasty surprise or two.
I ran down the stairs and onto the sidewalk in front of my building. The street was packed with people, either from the building or there to watch the potential fire. Didn’t they know they were making it impossible for the firefighters to get to the fire when they stood in the street?
Like a good potential victim of a fire, I crossed the street and waited on the sidewalk. Not only was I staying out of the way so the professionals could do their job, I also had a great unobstructed view of the building.
And when I looked at the building it hit me. I couldn’t see any flames. Not a one. And where was the smoke? Didn’t smoke come with fire? Come to think of it, I hadn’t smelled any smoke in the building when I’d been evacuating.
Something about this was fishy. I pushed my dripping wet hair out of my face and took up residence under the nearest street light. Its glowing rays falling over me, I activated the cameras in my apartment. I wanted to see what was going on, for I suspected the supposed “fire” was no normal fire, if there even was a fire in the first place.
I went from camera angle to camera angle and didn’t see anything disturbed, but when I went to the view from right outside my front door, my suspicions were confirmed. Two men wearing janitorial uniforms were coming out of my neighbor’s apartment with large bags in their hands.
They looked up and down the hall and then walked to my door. “Don’t do it or you’ll be sorry,” I muttered even as they began to jimmy my lock.
I hit the purple button which had appeared on my screen even as I watched them fight to jimmy the lock. There was something very satisfying about watching them have a hard time getting in. It made all my efforts finding military grade security locks worth it.
Fire trucks and police cars roared onto the scene. Berries yelled for everyone to get away from the building, to get out of the street, to let the firefighters do their job.
I ignored the confusion around me and watched as the thieves finally popped the locks on my door. They were breathing hard and swearing at me.
(But not hard enough for my satisfaction. When I replaced the locks, I’d upgrade them to the super secret military grade locks I’d passed on before. Those, nobody would have had a chance getting through.)
Who locks their door when there’s a fire alarm?
I do.
One of the thieves went straight to my bedroom while the other began to ransack my front room. But their invasion of my space didn’t bother me as much as it normally would have.
When the one got into my bedroom, I closed the door behind him, sealing him in and separating him from his friend. I watched as he whirled around and tried to open the door. He began to bang and yell to his partner in crime, but his partner didn’t hear him.
His partner was too busy dealing with his own problems. The second my bedroom door closed, my grandfather clock, which was normally silent at all times, began to go off. The bonging was loud even with the fire alarm going off.
The man in the front room jumped, startled at the sound, and went over to the clock when it didn’t stop bonging after a minute. He ran his hands along the front of the clock, trying to open the door which was keeping him away from the weights.
His touch activated the defensive mechanism. Two large, very heavy, and very sharp gravity driven axes crashed down from each side of the clock’s front. The blades sliced through his arms, severing his hands and forearms from his body. He stared down at his bleeding stumps before he began screaming.
(This trap was based on an old movie I’d seen ages go. When I’d seen how ingeniously simple it was to activate and deactivate, I knew I needed a replica, which the man at the clock shop had been happy to make for me at an additional fee. What he didn’t know was that I’d taken out the lightweight, blunt axes he’d put in the clock and replaced them with my killing blades.)
Meanwhile, my bedroom had begun to fill with a gas which would knock the thief out and then suffocate him. The gas would fill the room for only ten minutes before harmlessly venting outside. The gas would only be effective during the time it was in my bedroom, ensuring anyone who went back into my bedroom afterward would be unharmed.
Thief began to cough, covering his nose to stop inhaling the gas. But it did no good and he slowly fell to the ground in a graceless plop. I knew it wouldn’t be long before he was dead, a victim of his own greediness.
(This trap was from my own ingenious design and was purely something I’d created and tested on my own. Nobody, other than a few construction workers who’d created the vents for me, had been in on it and even they didn’t know the real reason I’d had the vents installed. Seeing my work of art work so well gave me a very happy feeling inside.)
And speaking of cleaning up, I needed to call someone to clean up my apartment before I could return. The man in the living room alone was making quite a mess with all his flailing about. I wish he’d just die already.
Though, he was dying a lot faster than my old roommate had when she’d been attacked by the same clock. She’d taken forever to die from exsanguination. Even though she’d lost just as much blood, which was really quite a lot now that I saw this thief’s blood make such a mess, something within her had just kept hanging on. But even with this little delay, she hadn’t coated the apartment in blood like this guy was. That had been one of the things I’d actually liked about her, she’d been unwilling to force her untidiness on others.
Maybe next time I’d stay away from the blood based traps. They just made too much of a mess and really did take much t
oo long to take effect. My poison trap, however, had been clean, fast, and effective, just what I wanted when taking someone out. Yes, poison really should be my method of choice in the future.
Ignoring the pain and anguish the man in my living room exhibited, I pulled out my phone to call up my friend who would clean up this mess. He’d been there when I’d needed him with the bloody roommate situation, and I just knew he would be there for me now.
“Yeah,” the deep, gravelly voice on the other side barked.
“Morti? It’s Ana. I need you,” I said, biting my lip, praying Morti wasn’t busy.
“How big is the job?” he asked. That’s what I loved about Morti. He didn’t ask any questions except those that pertained directly to his job. No, how’d it happen or why’d it happened. Just how many.
“Two men, but one was bleeding pretty badly,” I said.
Morti grunted. “When do you need it done?”
“Immediately, if you can. Though, it might be a few hours before I get access to where they are,” I said, knowing that giving him as much information as possible early on was the only way to get the job done quickly.
“Location?”
“My place.” I gave him my address and apartment number.
“Security?” he asked. I could hear scratching on the other end of the line, as if he were taking notes.
“I’ll disable everything when your men get here,” I assured him.
“Payment?” he asked.
“Normal drop off location after the jobs done,” I guaranteed. This wasn’t the first time I’d had to get rid of dead bodies. Morti was the best at these types of things and because he was the best and completely discreet, he was very busy and very rich. You wouldn’t think getting rid of bodies could be so lucrative, but it was.
“Fine. I’ll have two guys over there in three hours,” he promised.
“Thanks for squeezing me in,” I said, extremely grateful he’d been able to get this job into his busy schedule.
Morti grunted in reply one last time before hanging up. It would take his men three hours to get here and another couple hours to clean up, and I refused to go back to my place before they were gone, so what was I going to do? I needed sleep.
And I wasn’t going to get any around here. The fire trucks were finally leaving, but by the looks of the berries, they’d be here a while.
I walked away from my building and commotion to the nearest capsule hotel. I could rent a capsule to sleep in for a few hours, go back to let Morti’s people in, and then sleep until they were finished.
My heavy head had barely hit my pillow before my alarm went off, letting me know I needed to get up. It was very hard to pry my eyelids apart because all I wanted to do was to fall into the sweet oblivion of sleep.
I couldn’t, however, because I had two dead bodies in my apartment. “Damn thieves,” I cursed as I dragged myself out of the hotel and up the block back to my building. The berries and the gawking onlookers were gone, leaving the area as quiet as a cemetery.
In front of the building was a black van so plain it couldn’t help but blend into every other van in the world. I walked up to the passenger side window, which had rolled down when I approached, and said, “Nice night for a party.”
“But what would we do with the zombies?” the man replied.
“Invite them? How you doing, Levi? And the wife and kids?” I asked, beaming at the man.
The man got out of the van and gave me a big hug. “Good, good. I’ve been great, actually. Business is really booming. Honey’s real good, too. Been doing some side jobs when the kids are at school,” he said, looking very proud of his wife, which he should have been. Honey was a great woman and he was lucky she’d agreed to marry him, considering.
“And I bet she’s been bugging you to take a vacation,” I said, leading them up the stairs.
“You know it,” he laughed. Honey was always bugging him to take a vacation because she thought he worked too hard. “And you? How’ve you been?”
I gave him a weak smile. “Good. A little sleep deprived, but overall, things are looking up.”
“I’m glad. You deserve it. So, what’s the deal with tonight?” Levi asked, getting down to business.
“Fake fire alarm so they could burgle the building. Burglars went into my place and got a little more than they bargained for,” I said, getting into business mode myself.
We were now standing outside my door. “Anything we should know about?” he asked.
“One’s in the bedroom, other is in the living room. Living room guy is missing his hands and the blood needs to be cleaned up. Bedroom guy was gassed, but it’s fine for you to go in,” I assured him.
“What type of gas?” Levi asked, pulling gloves out of his bag.
“Sleeping and suffocating. It only has power for about ten minutes and this happened about three hours ago.” I wanted them to know they didn’t have anything to worry about. I’d never do anything to harm Levi. If I did, I knew Honey would gut me like a fish.
“So with proper ventilation, the room should be clear. We’ll still make sure it’s habitable for you before we leave,” Levi assured me. “What should we do with their loot?”
“Leave it and I’ll figure out how to return the things back to their owners,” I said, already coming up with different ideas as to how I could do it, but as of yet not coming to any decisions.
“Ma’am?” the other man asked in a surprising soft voice for one so large.
“Yes?”
The other man swallowed nervously. “Is there anything we should watch out for? In the apartment, I mean?”
“Ana, let me introduce you to my newest assistant Ray. Been on the job for about a year, but still learning the ropes. Ray this is Ana. A very good client of Morti’s,” Levi said.
“How you do, ma’am?” Ray asked, still sounding nervous.
“I’m fine, except for this little situation. As for the traps, if you give me a second, I’ll deactivate them,” I said. With a few taps of my fingers, the security system went silent, all the traps disabled. “You can safely go in now.”
Levi reached for the door. “Thanks, darling. We’ll get this place all cleaned up for you in no time. Will be like nothing ever happened. I’ll send you a message when we’re finished,” he said.
“And lock up. Be sure to say hi to Honey for me,” I said.
“Will do.” Levi opened the door and stepped through with Ray right on his heels. I was only a few feet away when I heard Ray say, “Dear Ancients. What happened to him?”
Levi laughed. “A woman who doesn’t want to be messed with. This is a lesson to you, son. Don’t mess with women. There are stories I could tell you…”
I tiredly smiled as I left to go back to my capsule. It was good to see Levi again. A shame we only saw each other at these types of occasions.
Oh, well. Couldn’t do anything about it. But what I could do something about was sleep, that sweet oblivion which called my name like a siren luring sailors. And I wanted to be lured. Dear Ancients, how I wanted to be lured.