Danse Macabre
Felipe awoke with ahorrendous headache. The moment he sat up, his head swam dangerously, and his mouth tasted like he had been sucking on pennies. Closing his eyes and lips tightly, Felipe swallowed down the bile threatening to spew out. It had been years since he had a hangover. His body usually took care of it no matter how much he drank, but after a drink or two, he forgot he couldn’t rely on that anymore. He scrubbed a hand over the itchy beginnings of his beard and found he was still fully clothed. It really must have been a rough night. Reaching behind him to apologize to Oliver, his hand met empty sheets.
“Oliver?” he called to the silent apartment. Fishing out his pocket watch, he squinted at the face. It was nearly noon. Oliver must have gone to work and left him to sleep it off. Felipe looked around the bedroom. There was no note, no smell of food, not even a cup of water waiting, which, knowing Oliver, he probably would have left if he had gone—
“Fuck,” Felipe said aloud as he fell back on the bed. He had gotten so caught up with Jed and some of the Brooklyn wolf pack that he never came back to talk to Oliver. Just one more drink, one more game of billiards, one more story. He had been so out of it when he landed face-first in bed that he hadn’t even noticed the apartment was empty. Oliver didn’t have a key, but Gwen Jones could have easily opened the door, though Oliver wouldn’t have let himself in like that. He was probably furious with him, as he should be.
Felipe sighed. This was what he wanted after all, wasn’t it? Some distance between him and Oliver to make Saturday easier. Well, he had managed to do his damnedest to make it happen through sheer selfishness alone, but the victory felt hollow. He couldn’t die with Oliver thinking he hated him or didn’t want him around when the opposite was true. Felipe wanted him so badly he had to stop himself because he couldn’t bear to leave a path of destruction in his wake with Oliver at the epicenter. After he cleaned himself up, he would try to make things up to Oliver. They needed to have a real discussion, and this time, Felipe couldn’t run.
When he asked Jed if he wanted to go to the bar, he had intended to use it as a place to spy on the front door of the society. From there and the billiards table in the next room, he had a clear line of sight should anyone come down the main staircase to leave. But Newman never showed. If he did manage to leave, he either slipped out the back or left after Felipe went to bed. Reaching into his inner jacket pocket, Felipe pulled out the notes he tore from Newman’s notepad. The original case notes from Sister Mary Agnes’s death were still scant, but they painted a different picture than what Newman turned in to the head inspector. At least they had gotten something out of breaking into Newman’s rooms. They had proof he had the right powers, that he lied in his report, and they could suss out a connection between him and Sister Mary Agnes far easier now. Gritting his teeth, Felipe tried to imagine what Newman must have been thinking when he murdered him. The man had been in his rooms, lying in wait, and had ripped the life out of him without a second thought after spending most of the day together. But why? Was it just because he was involved in Sister Mary Agnes’s case, and he panicked? None of it made sense.
Emptying his pockets into the bowl by the front door, Felipe stared at his notepad with a frown. He flipped to the last used page and found a lopsided note that read,Ask Oliver box Jed. He vaguely remembered scribbling it at the pool table. Jed had asked him about the things they brought back from California. Apparently, something that was supposed to go to the archives from the estate was missing, and Jed needed it for something. Felipe was sure it made sense in the moment, but he couldn’t remember the details besides that Jed hadn’t realized Felipe had given some of the weirder items to Oliver. Those two didn’t seem to get along, so when Felipe went to make peace with Oliver, he would ask him about the box of specimens before Jed could. Oliver would understand.
Shucking off his rumpled jacket and shirt, Felipe stood before his shaving mirror and nearly recoiled at the man staring back at him. He looked haggard and drawn, but worst of all, he looked miserable. This wasn’t him. This wasn’t who he wanted to be or who he wanted to be remembered as. First, he would set things right with Oliver, and then, they would figure out how to get Newman and Father Gareth. Three days was plenty of time.
***
“Ifeel like you’reavoiding your problems,” Gwen said from her stool near the coffee urn, which mournfully gurgled in assent.
“I don’t know why you would think that.”
“Because you are an expert at avoiding anything that complicates your life. I watched you sidestep asking Felipe Galvan out to dinner for at least five years while making eyes at him and simultaneously avoiding being alone with him. You need to talk to Felipe about what you learned from Turpin. He deserves to know.”
Releasing a loud sigh, Oliver grabbed his notepad off the table and disappeared into the bowels of the closet. He couldn’t talk to Felipe right now because it was the end of the month, and he needed to order any supplies he was running low on. The fact that he hadn’t seen Felipe in over eighteen hours was beside the point. Gwen leaned against the closet door watching him with a frown as he spun jars back into place and wrote down the name of any acids, powders, or oils that looked remotely low. Some he probably didn’t need, but writing kept his brain busy.
“Did I tell you Turpin’s contacts have heard nothing about a human skin book being bought or sold?”
“That’s good at least. That means Father Gareth probably still has it,” Oliver said off-handedly as he counted how many bags of sawdust he had left.
“What’s with the sawdust?”
“Body fluids.”
Making a disgusted noise, Gwen scuffed the box near the entrance with her toe. “Are these the things Felipe brought back for you? You still haven’t looked at them?”
Oliver swallowed hard and shook his head. “Would you be willing to take them to the archives when you go?”
Silence hung thickly between them, but Oliver kept his eyes on the shelves and the strings of chemical compounds blurring across each bottle. “Oliver.”
“He doesn’t want to stay alive past Saturday. That’s what he said, and he’s made it very clear he has spent enough time with me, Gwen.”
“But he’s—”
“Can we please talk about something else right now? How’s your vampire research going?”
“I think you’re making a mistake, but I’ll take them with me,” Gwen said behind him. The box jingled as she levitated it across the room to the bench. A moment later she reappeared, following him deeper into the shelves. “This place is bigger than I thought. What are those?”
Oliver’s eyes flickered to the rows of boxes stacked and tagged on the shelf beside his door. “Ossuaries. Some are unidentified skeletal remains. Some are specimens I use when I talk to investigators about specific injuries.”
“Shouldn’t we have a proper crypt for those?”
“Ask the building. The archivists didn’t like storing them, so now they’re here with me. They’ll probably send back the box of specimens, too, once they catalog them.”
“They are quite squeamish. Reynard was telling me about how John Marsh got in an argument with Mr. Liu about—”
Oliver held up a hand for quiet at the dull whine and thud of the alley door opening. His heart thumped at the thought of Felipe finally appearing, but when the lights shut off in the laboratory, his heart raced for a whole other reason. He and Gwen exchanged a wide-eyed glance as he held a finger to his lips and led her to his half-hidden bedroom door.
Carefully opening it just wide enough to avoid the squealing hinge, Oliver ushered Gwen inside. “Stay in here. No matter what you hear, do not come out,” he whispered, his voice tight.
