Page 11 of Snow Blind (The Technicians #14)

H elen was feeling what Bryan felt as well. She sat on the couch, staring into the crackling fireplace, watching the flames dance. In her mind, a thought occurred which never had before; she didn't need this shit. She could be home with her man, setting up her craft room to make cutesy embroidered shit for the house. Hell, it was the holiday season, and she hadn't visited her man's new job or even met his co-workers. Now that she was his wife, there was planning to do, cookies to bake for the office, and cute gifts to give. If, and she thought about it carefully, she left on the fifteenth of the sixteenth of the month; she had time to purchase a new sewing and embroidery machine. It only took maybe half an hour to an hour to make a cute mug rug, and in the back, she could slide in candy canes, hot chocolate, and tea bags. Heck, she even had enough time to get a few clear coffee mugs and use the sublimation machine to personalize the mugs. Well, once she knew the names of his co-workers.

"Cranberry?" Passion Fruit said, pulling her from her thoughts. Thus far, from both Bad Apple and Lemon, she'd heard how clever the new Technician Trainee was, how she thought differently, and how she saw ways through problems based on her survival instincts. This would be a lesson in staging accidents the lady would never forget, but Lemon needed to know what she was thinking before making a plan. "Your thoughts?"

Helen looked up and said, "I was thinking, I could be home with my man, preparing gifts for the holidays. Instead, I'm here with the two of you, preparing to plan a means to kill this man."

"I don't like that idea very much either, Ms. Cranberry," Bryan said. "Wait, you need to kill me?"

"Yes," Passion Fruit said softly, "but what I'm not understanding is where are your ID's? There was nothing on your body."

"Left boot," he replied, "under the insole. I keep it there in case someone tries to rob me while I’m hiking, or worse, someone shoots me and leaves me for dead."

Helen didn't like it. She also didn't particularly care for Bryan's withholding of information. Her hand went up. "First, your broken up ass needs to be honest. How in the hell did you find out Kurtzwilde is Imperial, and what is Imperial?"

Bryan swallowed hard, "The Chrysalis has three head butterflies, the Tiger Swallowtail, The Tomato Hornworm, and Imperial."

Helen asked, "You know this how?"

"Friends of mine took me to the Velvet Vault, his adult club in Chicago," Bryan said. "They paid for me to get the VIP treatment, and I was going to the bathroom, got turned around, and ended up by his office. I saw him, heard his voice, and learned about a shipment of fresh talent. He spotted me, so I pretended to be drunk, stumbling all over the place, holding my junk, saying I had to whiz in the pot before I whizzed in a THOT."

"Classy," Helen said, turning up her lips.

"Hey, spur of the moment," he replied. "Anyway, one of my friends is also with Homeland Security, and I mentioned the shipment, nothing more. The next day, the shipment was intercepted, and I knew that I needed to tell someone who Imperial was and what else I heard that night, but I was going to wait until after the hiking trip, then I was due in Colorado to start working on my novel."

Passion Fruit shook her head. "The clubs have cameras throughout, you numbskull. Yes, you may have pretended to be drunk to get past him, but on the way from the bathroom, were you still stumbling? By the look on your face, I guess that means no. Also, your ID was scanned when you came in the club, so at any given time, that man knows who is in his building, and he's recording. He is always recording. If you got a lap dance with your pants pulled down, he has a recording of it for future use."

"What?" Bryan said, shocked there was proof of him being in the club and the treat his friends paid for him to receive.

"That's how those places work, Bryan. How do you think he's managed to stay in business for so long? No one can touch him, and he's evil," Passion Fruit snapped. "Now I have to stage your death."

Bryan leaned forward and asked, "Why did you save me?"

"Instinct kicked in to save your life, but I also wanted to understand why there was a shooter on my turf when I was there to do the same thing," she replied. "It might not have been the Chrysalis who put the bullet in you, especially if my father knew there was a contract on you. There is another player and someone you have pissed off. Who could that be?"

Bryan pointed at himself. "I am a college English professor. I don't really fail anyone, but I help them write well. As far as I know, I don't have any enemies."

"And your aunt’s kids? Who is getting her house? Someone wants you dead," Passion Fruit said.

Helen was over all of it. "That's all well and dandy, and we have established someone or several someones want him dead. The question is, how do we kill him off? Better yet, where are you going to get a replacement for the live, carnivorous, six-foot, green-eyed man with dusty blond hair?"

Bryan didn’t care for her classification of him, "Why I gotta be carnivorous?"

"You eat meat, don't you, Bryan? We can't get the body of a vegetarian and say it's you by simply placing your ID on the body," Helen said.

Passion Fruit leaned back into the oversized chair. This is what she wanted to hear from Cranberry. She needed to hear her thoughts on the steps required to make Bryan no longer be a part of the world.

Helen continued, "Bryan also has nice, well-maintained teeth, so there are dental records. Yeah, no fingerprints are one thing, but are you going to find a man with no teeth who is the same blood type with thick skin on his feet? "

"I have resources," Passion Fruit stated.

"Resources? And what the hell does that mean? You're going to call up Johnny J at Cadavers are Us to get a dead white man who has been decomposing for the past three weeks?" Helen asked.

Passion Fruit actually laughed. She liked Cranberry and her irreverent way of approaching a matter, and the questions were relevant. Today would be a learning exercise for them all.

"There are contracts I receive that aid and assist a person with getting a new life, which means I have to put an end to the old one," Passion Fruit explained. "Bryan's situation is no different. I have to put an end to his old life."

Bryan didn't like where the conversation was headed. "And I am simply supposed to start a new life? I have a book contract...my bank accounts...my life?'

"What life?" Passion Fruit asked. "You merely existed, grading papers, regurgitating information semester after semester to fresh faced ingenues who found you mildly attractive, and wiping drool from your aunt’s lip. No one is going to miss you because you never really existed to begin with, if we're honest."

Helen was surprised at the harshness in her tone. "There is no need to be cruel, Passion Fruit. He's already scared, his world has been turned upside down, and now you're going to erase him. Let’s find a center lane here."

"There is no center lane! He lived a shit life, thinking he was God's gift to women and didn't feel he needed to settle down with one and start a family, but hang out with his miscreant adult male pals in strip clubs getting dick rides from broken, trafficked women," Passion Fruit said. "Don't try to paint this fucker as a victim. Me saving his life is an opportunity for him to be better. Either he wants to be better, or we can finish the job."

Bryan hung his head. "Finish the job. I see no need to go on even trying. End me and toss me over the cliff, since you find no value in me."

Helen didn't care for the pity party. She didn't appreciate Passion Fruit's hard line towards Bryan either. Some men simply did the best they could with what they were given. Him taking care of his aunt was a sign he wasn't a bad human, just maybe selfish.

Helen wanted to know. "Bryan? Why are you single and have no kids? Do you have kids?"

"No, I don't. I never wanted them because the world is such a shit place," he said. "Each semester, I stand in front of the class and tell the young ladies the dos and don'ts of campus life, explaining that the men on campus have plans for them already and not to get caught in the traps. I say the same to the young men, that if she's not looking you in the eye saying yes, she wants you, then don't ruin your life for three minutes of release. Yet, they never listen. I teach kids. I don't want them. The world is shitty. Bringing kids into this defunct society is selfish, which is why I never married or had any of my own."

Helen continued, "And your aunt that you were caring for?"

"Her kids never come to visit their mother," he said. "She was there all alone. People had broken into her home, stolen things, and still, her kids couldn't seem to be bothered. I grew up with her. It wasn't as if she was a bad mother. My Aunt is kind and loving, so I took care of her until it got to the point where she was beyond what I could do."

Helen listened carefully, and she asked a question, "Her retirement checks, are they still going into her accounts?"

"No, I had everything stopped and transferred to the memory care facility to take care of her," Bryan said, touching the gauze on his face. "You don't think my cousins...nah, no way?"

"If one or all of them were siphoning off her accounts, and you cut off the access to that free money, then possibly," Helen said, shifting her focus. "Now, what do we do, Passion Fruit?"

"I need to make a couple of calls, then you and I will need to go to work," she replied.

"I don't like this. For some reason, I feel like I'm going to regret all of this," Helen said.

At the end of the day, Helen not only questioned her desire to be a Technician, but also her understanding of the world she lived in and the people she never knew existed. There was an entire universe of networks of magical fairies that supported the Conclave of Angels where people made phone calls to change lives, and she was stepping inside of the veil. Passion Fruit made a call which would forever change hers.

****

H ELEN brOUGHT WORK clothes, just in case a job came up where she needed to provide an assist to Passion Fruit. She just didn't think it would be this soon. Dressed in black cargo pants, she thought of the Bushmaster's father and the pants he wore with the blades in them. A mental note was made to reach out to the Bushmaster and ask who his father's tailor was to make such delightful pants; it was nothing more than a distraction of riding shotgun in the black Ford F-150. They were going to get a body to stage an accident to kill off Elliot Parker. In her pocket were the man's ID cards they would leave on the body. She even had his shoes in the back of the truck.

The drive from Antioch to Chicago was roughly about an hour. Passion Fruit pulled up to a nondescript warehouse. Helen stood close behind her, the 9mm in her pocket and a blade in her right hand inside of her black pea coat. She said nothing as the door opened and a man, who was the epitome of every mad scientist of a warehouse troll, bade them to enter.

Goosebumps went up and down Helen's arms at the chill of the warehouse. Passion Fruit calmly followed the man into a freezer. Helen didn't want to enter, but she followed behind. In the freezer were slabs of bodies in varying states of decomposition.

"Three weeks’ worth of decomp, white male, six feet," Passion Fruit said.

"Got two. Barney here has a bullet wound like you asked, and this guy, Chet, who had his junk cut off in an alley by a night worker, but he doesn't have a bullet wound," the troll of a man said.

"Barney it is," Passion Fruit said. "Roll him out so we can get started."

Helen swallowed hard and asked, "Get started doing what?"

"We have to break out his teeth, and you will need to burn off his fingerprints," Passion Fruit said.

"Nope," Helen said, "naw. Hell no. Not today, Satan's helpers."

"Cranberry, this is the job. You make it happen or you wash out," Passion Fruit said. "I have no tolerance for squeamish agents. Do the work, and we go home."

"Yeah, home sounds real damned good right now," Helen replied shivering at the thoughts of what needed to happen next. "How do I burn off fingerprints?"

"With this," the troll said, passing her what looked like a mini-iron. The gurney rolled into the main room.

Helen stood in horror as they stretched the man's mouth open. Passion Fruit took a small hammer and hit the man in the teeth. Helen gasped. Passion Fruit pointed at the iron which the troll had plugged in.

A dab of saliva went to her finger as Helen tested the heat of the iron. She heard the sizzle. Taking a deep breath, she lifted Barney's hand and pressed his index finger to the iron. The smell of burning skin nearly made her gag.

"Oh God. Oh, God!" Helen said, doing the next finger, followed by the next until she reached the thumb on his right hand.

A case of the icky willies hit her, and she began an unladylike dance in the middle of the floor, trying to shake off the colly wobbles. The sound of the teeth breaking, the smell of the burning flesh, and a naked Barney with a blue green bullet hole were almost too much. She danced more, looking like Flavor Flav not believing the hype.

"Cranberry, stop fooling around. We still have to get him dressed," Passion Fruit said, reaching into the man's mouth and pulling out molars.

"Father, forgive me for all of my sins," Helen said, moving around the table to start on the other hand.

She moved faster this time, feeling sicker by the moment. Passion Fruit, now on top of the gurney, straddled Barney and pulled out the last of the teeth. The troll disappeared, coming back with clothing that Barney had been wearing. All of it smelled like urine and alcohol.

"No," Helen said. "The victim wasn't a drinker."

"We're setting him on fire so it doesn't matter," Passion Fruit said. "We're going to set him on fire, toss him over the cliff, and hope the brush catches ablaze to alert the authorities. Then his body will be found with the ID in the left boot."

"I have died and gone to Hell," Helen said, burning off the remaining fingerprints. "If we are setting him on fire, why am I burning off his fingerprints?"

"Because you need to know how, that's why," Passion Fruit explained. "Plus, there is always some clever coroner who finds a bit of flesh that she hydrates and imprints. This way, we take no chances. Get him dressed, please."

Just as she had removed Bryan's clothing, she began to dress Barney. His socks went on first, then the stained, dirty underpants. She struggled to get on his pants, and Bryan's boots were a size too small.

“These boots might be too small,” Helen said aloud.

“Then you might have to break his toes,” Passion Fruit called back.

“The Devil is a liar, Barney, these boots are going on your damned feet tonight,” Helen said, determined to make the shoe fit on the cadaver. The boots were worked onto his feet, followed by the shirt. She looked at the man, saying a prayer for his departed soul.

The troll wrapped Barney in a blanket and carried him out to the truck. As the tailgate came down, an accelerant was poured over poor Barney tucked inside the plastic sheeting encapsulated him. Helen, sitting shotgun once more, remained quiet as they rode to the site where Bryan was last seen hiking. At the edge of the cliff in the black of night, they set Barney's body at the edge of the ravine. One click of the lighter and the body was on fire. Passion Fruit snapped a photo with her phone.

Passion Fruit gave the body a kick, and over the side of the cliff he went. Hurriedly, they ran to the truck, driving away in no real hurry, heading to her cabin where Bryan and Candy the Cane Corso awaited. Helen was near tears at what they'd done to Barney, but she was also at an understanding with Passion Fruit.

She asked Passion Fruit, "You're keeping him for yourself, aren't you?"

"What are you talking about, Helen?"

"Bryan? You're going to give him a new identity, and when he heals, you hope he will want to stay with you and write his book," Helen said.

"And what if I do?"

"You are so mean to him, Lashonda! You're basically his captor, and now you want to act as his liberator, making him beholden to you. Give the man a choice," Helen said. "Provide him everything he needs to start a life over, even moving the contract to his new name so he can write his book, but don't make it seem like he owes you. It won't work out in the long run."

"You talk as if you're speaking from experience," Passion Fruit said.

"I am," she confessed. "I had a boyfriend, and that's what he was, a boy pretending to be a man, pretending to be my friend. He saw himself as my liberator, and he was giving me this cool life by helping me, and every chance he got, he tried to gaslight me or spent time intentionally chipping away at my self-esteem."

"Well, how did that end?"

"He came home to a place without me," Helen said. "I didn't bother to take anything other than what I was wearing. I changed my number, quit my job, and moved to another city. Lashonda, people don't like feeling beholden. If he wants to stay with you after he heals, let it be up to him."

"Hmmp," was all Lashonda said as sirens wailed in the background. Silence stayed in the vehicle as they returned to the home where Bryan waited patiently for their return.

He looked at Helen's face, then at Passion Fruit's. A nod was all he gave as he hobbled his way to the room where he stayed. He'd made a friend in Candy the Cane Corso, who followed along with him, sleeping at his feet.

"Well, the dog likes him," Helen said, bidding Passion Fruit goodnight.

In the other room, Lashonda Temple sent the information ahead to her handler that the job had been done. However, there was additional information that needed to be shared with Azrael. She called, not wanting to say what was next.

On the call, she explained everything that had happened. Bryan being at her cabin, discovering who he was, and the arrival of her father. Passion Fruit explained the connection between Bryan and Kurtzwilde, adding to the information dump of her father being the Imperial in the Chrysalis. Further, she went on to explain her father's cryptic warning of Cranberry needing to take a seat for a while. Reluctantly, the last two parts she didn't want to say, but needed to put out in the universe.

"My father listed his other bastard children, all which are Technicians, including the one in Georgia, Elm, Thunder, and Morgan," she said.

"Noted, and we are aware," Azreal said. "Anything else?"

"Cranberry needs a break," she told their boss. "We had to do some things tonight that mentally may be fucking with her head. The holidays are coming up, so let her head home and come back after the New Year. If she decides not to come back, then you also have an answer and resolution of her fitness to handle the tough work."

"How tough?"

"Burning off fingerprints, removing teeth, dressing a dead man, then setting him on fire," Passion Fruit said.

"Well, that would fuck with my head too," Azreal commented. "And the man?"

"Who? Bryan?"

"No, Paul Bunyan! What do you need?"

"A new life package," Passion Fruit stated. "He had a book deal, so can we work some magic, clean his accounts, and move them to the new name? He's still broken up, his face is bandaged, and he's going to be nothing to look at for a long time, but he deserves to at least get a chance to work on his book."

Azreal didn’t like this, but she appreciated the humanity in Passion fruit coming through, "You going soft on me?"

"There is nothing soft about me, not even my hair. Maracuya out," she said, ending the call.

Helen needed to go home for a while. Passion Fruit also needed time to figure out a path forward with the man. There weren't many men she was comfortable to be around, and she liked Bryan. Secretly, she hoped he wanted to stay with her, but chances were slim.

"All we can do is hope someone else is tired of being lonely too," she said, whistling for Candy the Cane Corso to follow her to the bedroom. She was calling it a night.