ONE

The Client

With the sun threatening to set I saw my last student of the day on her way. The studio was a bit of a mess, with the parts to one of my grands strewn about. I’d spent the afternoon showing my students how to dismantle and maintain individual parts of a piano. As the sky outside became a mess of purples and reds, I spent the next two hours replacing keys, tuning strings, and touching up the felt on hammers before sliding the action back into place.

Confident everything was in it’s proper place, I called it quits on my day job. I locked up my studio, hopped into my Mitsubishi and listened to a few Chopin Preludes as I drove over to my buddy’s restaurant.

Bento Fusion wasn’t actually Shed’s restaurant, but he was the head chef. They specialized in over-the-top westernized renditions of classic Japanese cuisine. Shed was always coming up with new recipes to try out on the locals and the restaurant had never received a complaint or bad review while he was on shift.

I pushed open the double doors and walked inside like I owned the place, expecting to see a familiar frown. To her credit, the hostess’s smile didn’t waiver. She hates me. I always eat free here, and for some reason that irks her something awful. I’ve never cared enough to ask why. She couldn’t have been any older than nineteen and I expected would be described by her peers as high maintenance. I gave her my best Tom Cruise - you know, the smile that has absolutely nothing genuine behind it - and winked as I passed the Please Wait to be Seated sign.

I heard her mutter something under her breath as I made my way to the sushi bar, and I’m pretty sure it had to do with me shoving that smile of mine somewhere. I grinned a little wider.

“Irrashaimase!” Kenji, the sushi chef said in welcome as he gave me a curt, short bow and went about making my dish.

I never have to order here - the entire staff knows I always get whatever unagi dish is the best that day. Despite their physical appearance, eel is astoundingly tasty. As is our custom, Kenji and I engaged in a heated discussion about the best saké that season while I ate. Kenji doesn’t speak any English, and it’s amusing to see the reactions of the other Iowa customers when they see us arguing passionately in Japanese. I’m not convinced he ever actually disagrees with my comments about rice wine - I’m a scotch man, after all. It’s more that he likes to push my knowledge of his native drink to it’s limits, which he does, every time. I actually have to do homework between visits to keep up.

He and Shed had trained together in Osaka before the restaurant opened. All the kitchen staff and chefs are required to train two months in Japan before being hired on. Shed and Kenji trained for a full five years, and cooking techniques were only a part of their studies. Suffice to say that like Shed, Kenji is one of the few people in this world I would think twice about crossing. I’m quite content that he approves of my continued existence, and participation in the future of Bento Fusion - I sometimes play improvised versions of traditional Japanese folk music on the baby grand piano they keep in the corner on weekends.

My stomach full of goodness, I bowed to Kenji and grabbed my dishes (I’ve never seen the bus boy - I have no idea how this place stays so clean), and walked back into the kitchen. I don’t actually do my own dishes, but I figure I can at least drop them off as I always walk past the dishwasher anyway.

After handing them off to a staff member whose name I couldn’t remember or never knew, I gave Shed a fist bump and friendly nod while he took a break from chopping radishes. Bald by choice and a touch on the short side, Shed was lean - devoid of body fat and chiseled in a way that made one think of Burce Lee despite his pale skin. I saw a nasty looking burn on his arm and raised an eyebrow.

“A kobold came out of the walk-in a few minutes ago, looked around surprised, and freaked out” Shed sighed. “He grabbed a pan I had heating on the stove and took a swing at the new guy over there” he finished, pointing to a kid no older than seventeen chopping onions with his head down. It was obvious he was trying not to be seen.

I kept my eyebrow raised.

“New guy froze up, I intervened” he continued, staring at the blond kid. “I dealt with the ugly little lizard, but took the hot frying pan to my forearm in the process. Tssss” he hissed, mimicking the sound of burning flesh. Everybody has quirks, and one of Shed’s is creating his own sound effects. That, and killing people.

“New guy is, as you say… new!” I suggested helpfully.

“New guy will be dead guy if he doesn’t get his act together and put his expensive training to use” Shed called out, his voice raised enough for all the staff to hear as he swatted the back of the kid’s head. “There’s a reason I send the staff to Japan to trade, Lloyd. If they just needed to know how to cook I’d handle it here. Now get, I gotta lock up the walk-in after you and these radishes are losing their cool”.

I rolled my eyes. Shed loves wordplay and bad puns as much as I do, but that one was lame. “Speaking of losing, what’s the new guy’s name?” I asked, stepping into the walk-in.

“New Guy, until he earns otherwise”. Shed slammed the walk-in door and my world plunged into cold darkness.

Bento Fusion’s walk-in, for reasons unknown (at least to me), is a doorway to Des Moines’ flipside. There are other paths here and there throughout the city, but this one led to a stall in the street-level restroom of the same building I ran my other office out of. It was fast and convenient. I never have to worry about the stall being occupied, because not only is there no toilet, but unless you entered the restroom specifically looking for the door leading back to Des Moines normal side, you simply won’t notice it.

Usually. I don’t think the kobold that burned Shed had intended to end up in a walk-in freezer, but kobolds are stupid enough not to realize the laws of reality were bending to hide a door from the ignorant. They’re a waste of molecules, if they’re even composed of them. I’ve never tried to understand the laws of since on the Flip Side. What the hell was one of their lizard brood doing in my building anyway?

I stepped out of the stall and made sure the restroom was empty as kobolds usually run in packs, before checking myself out in the mirror to ensure I hadn’t spilled any of my dinner. I never have, but I make it a habit to always check. My clean and dashing good looks affirmed, I walked out into the lobby that, while once was a grand marble wonder, hadn’t aged well.

The building was very similar to its counterpart in the normal Des Moines. It’s the tallest sky scraper in the city, though here its significantly more so. I listened to the clack of my heels on a marble floor that probably shined once upon a time, then took the elevator up to my office.

The lift will take you as far as the nineteenth floor. After that you need a keycard, numerical code, Word of Power, and to pass a voice activated scan to access the landlord’s office on the thirtieth floor. Nobody knows what exists between floors nineteen and thirty, and asking just doesn’t seem wise. My landlord has a way of turning one’s organs inside out when she’s angry.

I punched the number ten and waited while an old Index Case song played through the speakers. The elevator plays only local music, and the fact that you’ve probably never heard of a band other than Slipknot to come out of Iowa in decades should tell you the quality of the soundtrack as I rode up.

After a ding and a pause that lasted just long enough to merit worry, the doors parted - six inches lower than they’re supposed to. I sighed dramatically and stepped up out of the elevator and onto my floor. I’d have to talk to the landlord about fixing the elevator. Again. For the third time this month. And I hate talking to her. Or interacting with her in any way.

The tenth floor is entirely mine, so when one steps out of the elevator they have about five square feet in which to enjoy their existence before encountering a steel and iron reinforced door with a plaque that originally read “Wealcan: Bounty Hunter”. I’d scratched in “bring money or gtfo” below it, just to make my attitude on casual visitors clear. I earn the bulk of my income out of this office, and don’t care to answer questions for free when there could be paying clients out there. Somewhere, out there. There was a post-it note stuck to the door, and a package on the floor.

I paid no attention to the package. It is not wise, on the Flip Side, to mess with containers until you have some idea what may be in them. Sometimes this offends the package, but I always err on the side of caution. I can take an angry package. I can’t always take, say, an inter-dimensional vacuum. Or, y’know… a bomb. Live and learn, they say. I started to read the post-it note aloud, but stopped as soon as I realized how stupid it would sound.

#include

Using namespace std;

Int main()

{

Count Count Count Count System (”pause”);

Return 0;

}

I only know one person who hand-writes in programming languages. I shook my head, rolled my eyes, and sighed again. What the hell? There was no signature, but I knew it was from Tresch. Tresch is a hacker, and a friend among other things. He’d only outsource to me if the contract required violence, infiltration that demanded physical effort, or the potential for either. He abhors violence - at least the kind that requires him to participate, and if there’s effort involves that doesn’t involve typing, forget about it. When jobs with those requirements come his way, he contacts me, Shed, or Big John. Working with Tresch is always interesting, always lucrative, and never safe.

I mentally lowered the defenses on my security door, and a mellow hum vibrated through me as the wards went down. After a break-in a few months ago, I’d hired a techno-wizard to come by and install a few security measures on the door to help keep people (and things that are very much not people) out when I’m not here. After showing up on three separate occasions to a hallway splattered in blood and various bits of something, once in shades of blue and green, without so much as a dent in the door I felt confident in the amount of money I’d spent.

I opened the door and slid the package into the room with my foot. Just because it was probably from Tresch didn’t mean I should be reckless. I’d been a Boy Scout as a child - always be prepared, cautious, and not stupid. I’ve had to alter the motto a bit, over the years.

Everything in the three thousand square foot landing was just as I’d left it last week. My gorgeous dark mahogany desk sits front and center with two suspiciously comfortable leather chairs facing it for clients who choose to come to me in person. The floor plan is completely open, and only a few freestanding shoji screens Shed gifted me after one of his latest trips to Japan give the office an area of implied boundary.

Off to the east is my personal library, storage for the gear I occasionally use on hunts, and a kick-ass home theater setup. The west end houses a bed, couch in front of a flat-screen with every videogame console I’d ever come across, and my other music studio where I keep all the instruments too dangerous or strange for use in the normal world.

I frowned when I saw the light in the bathroom was on. I told it to shut itself off and reprimanded it for not doing so of it’s own accord after being on so long. It came with a voice-activated privacy screen, rather than walls and a door. I’d ordered it my first month here from a store a few blocks south that specializes in technologies from potential futures. It was worth the money, most of the time. Occasionally it gave me attitude.

Light from the offices across the street mixed with the faint red neon of dance club to the southwest and gave the room a comforting glow. I don’t have windows, but the whole southern brick facade of the building is see-through from the inside. It’s a great effect, as it tricks the eye into thinking the floor just ends, open to the night and thee street below. It’s soundproof, shatterproof, and bulletproof, which is neat.

I slid the package along the floor to give it ample space on all sides, and retrieved a piece of chalk from my desk. I used it to draw a circle on the floor around the box, then opened it. Inside was what I expected: a black stone, and an old cellular flip-phone. I grabbed the phone, and left the stone where it was. Once outside the circle, I touched the edge and muttered the Konami Code under my breath (hey, mantras can be anything, as long as they work). My willpower short forth into the circle from my fingers, drawing up a column of invisible force around it’s edge. The cell phone rang.

“Wealcan’s”.

“Yo,” said Tresch’s familiar voice. “Gimme a sec here” he added, and I heard the clicking of keys in the background.

Not five seconds later the stone began to glow, then broke apart as the air around it ruptured in a pulsing shockwave, thankfully contained by my circle. Seemingly out of thin air I was suddenly looking at an old man in a worn, grey toga.

Did I mention that despite Tresch’s love of computers, he also hacks reality?

“Costume party?” I ventured as a guess, arching an eyebrow for the second time this evening.

“Yes” came a heavily accented reply. The man looked about curiously as if he could actually see the forcefield around him.

“As who?” I asked curiously.

“As me”.

“This is Charon” Tresh said through the phone.

“Oh”. I was glad I’d drawn up that circle before answering the phone. Charon is the legendary Soulcaster who ferries the dead across the river Styx. A man with the power to transport souls was both creepy and dangerous.

“Dude, speaker already!” the voice in my ear snapped. I hit the button and set the phone on the desk behind me.

“So, what can I do for you, Mr. Charon?” He was ancient, but not weak, and I always try and start my business relationships politely.

“I am told by the man on the phone that I am in need of your services as his will be inadequate for the task at hand”.

It always give me pause when Tresh can’t handle a task without help as that usually means I’m going to get the shit kicked out of me at some point. I waited with a smile, inviting him to continue.

“I hired your colleague there to track down an item of certain value, stolen from me two days past. I know where it is, but I don’t know Where it is”.

I blinked and stared at him.

“What he’s tryin’ to say,” offered Tresch’s voice from behind me and distorted by the phone’s tiny speaker, “is that the building it’s being kept in doesn’t actually exist”.

“Huh?” I said, showing off my amazing conversational skill and ability to keep up.

“The room housing his stick exists, but the building it’s in and thus it’s entrance or anything I should be able to hack, doesn’t. Exist” Tresch added helpfully.

“Stick? What exactly was stolen from you, Mr. Charon?” I asked in an attempt to bring the conversation back to a place I could make sense of, a pit of dread forming in my stomach.

“My Oar”.

“Your oar”, I repeated. Charon stared back at me, non-pulsed.

“Okay” I said with a shrug, as if a missing oar were an everyday occurrence. Money is money in the end. “Let’s talk payment, then details. Then we’ll probably have to talk payment some more, because that tends to happen when Tresch involves me in his work”. I pulled out my smartphone and accessed the calculator.

“The standard rate for locating and retreiving a non-animate item is three thousand dollars per week, current American tender. One-thousand up front to cover potential expenses. This is of course in addition to whatever you’re paying Tresch. Unless you’re paying me, Tresch?” I added.

“I also want the thief brought back to me. Intact”. There was no malice or deception in Charon’s voice. Only a cold, logical inflection. His eyes were inky black chasms that I couldn’t read.

“Alright” I continued with nonchalantly. “The minimum for hunting someone - wait, is the thief human? Do you know?”

Charon shrugged, an oddly modern gesture for his old frame.

“Well, if they’re human” I continued, “the minimum is five thousand weekly, first week up front. It goes up from there. I’ll let you know the final cost upon delivery. While I will do everything in my power to bring in the bounty alive, I make no promises and speak no oaths. I can also offer absolutely no guarantee that they will be unharmed” I finished.

Charon nodded in understanding and opened his mouth to speak.

“Yer gonna want Johnny along on this one” Tresch said before Charon could make a sound. Uh-oh. I looked at Charon, twisted around to eye the phone, then turned back to Charon.

“I’m going to have to tack on another ten thousand right now, all of which will need to be paid up front” I said with as stern a voice as I could muster.

Tresch grunted in agreement, and a knock sounded on my door. I excused myself and walked around to the other side of my desk. Charon and Tresch were muttering something about their own financial agreement as I pulled out my chair and reached down to touch a rod of brass I had worked into the underside of the wood, ready to channel my will into it if needed. It connects to a brass circle embedded in the floor at the door.

“Come in”.

The door swung open to reveal a briefcase floating in mid-air. The poltergeist courier couldn’t enter, as I never take down that particular ward when I get to my office. You just can’t trust ghosts these days.

I let my hand drop. “Just leave it there” I said, and the case dropped to the floor. I walked over, grabbed it, and shut the door again. Back at my desk I set it down and opened it to find sixteen thousand dollars in crisp stacks of hundred-dollar bills. I looked up at Charon.

“I will forward the remaining balance when you return the thief and my Oar. You have twenty-four hours”.

I gave him my most incredulous look. “Twenty four hours? There something else I need to be aware of?”.

Charon looked at me as one would a dimwitted child. “Without my Oar, I cannot navigate the river”.

My shoulders dropped as I realized the implications, and that the look Charon was giving me was warranted. The river Styx is composed of rejected souls, and the Oar gives him some measure of control over the currents they form, allowing him to cross without those souls dragging the boat down to their lower depths. No ordinary stick would do the job.

“Hold up”. I tapped a few buttons on my phone’s calculator, entering the variables of the hunt and factoring in the new time limit and reviewed the number it spit back at me. “That tight a time frame is going to require more upfront assets”.

Charon narrowed his eyes but raised an eyebrow at the same time. I’d have to learn how to do that, because it was effective at conveying his curiosity at my continued negotiation after he’d made his final declaration and paid me. Apparently he was unaccustomed to backtalk. A moment later his look transformed to one of amusement, though the blackness of his gaze lacked any familiar sparkle.

“Very well. Keep that briefcase as expense-only upfront asset. I’ll pay your normal rate in its entirety when you complete the task, in twenty-four hours.”

I nodded. He made to leave, then caught himself and turned back for one final bit of advice.

“I’m sure you can imagine my need for haste Mr. Wealcan, but you don’t know the half of it. The banks of the river are crowding. When there is no room left, souls will have no choice but to spill out into the rest of the world. Do not fail” he finished. His face faded away, revealing decaying flesh in patches over a skull crawling with maggots. I swallowed, grateful for the protective ward encircling him.

That was creepy, I had to admit. I smiled, showing my teeth. People tell me when I do that, there is a recognizable manic look in my gaze, but they’ve never explained to me what they mean by that.

“If Tresch recommended me, then he’s also told you of my reputation. I never fail, Mr. Charon”.

Never show fear - or the potential for it - as a mortal on the Flip Side. Do, and you’ll be trampled as everyone and everything walks all over you. Or eats you. And not necessarily metaphorically. For all his age and power, Charon hesitated a moment before tilting his head curiously, bowing politely, and disappearing through the rip in reality. With a reversal of the shockwave that brought him here, the rip sealed itself up. Sometimes it pays to have a reputation like mine.

I picked up the phone and said my goodbyes to Tresch, but the line was already dead.

I sat down at my desk and powered up my computer. Leaning back in my chair, I snapped off a piece of the phone and popped it in my mouth. Tresch only ever sent me edible phones, since they can’t be traced or accessed for data once they’ve been digested. This one was watermelon.

As I finished chewing, I checked my email: nothing. That was par for the course. While I often work multiple cases at a time, most people on the flipside don’t trust email. It’s too easy for beings that exist outside normal wavelengths to intercept. Still, it didn’t hurt to make the option available just in case.

I picked up my smartphone again and told it to get ahold of Big John., After a few seconds I heard his flat, no-nonsense “What”. It wasn’t that he knew it was me - he doesn’t pay attention to caller ID. That’s just how he answers his phone.

“Meet me over at Exodus in ten? I’ve got some work for you. And before you ask, yes, you’ll get to use your guns”. He grunted and hung up.

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