Who: Eli and Julian What: Checking Isobel's apartment Where: Bathos When: Friday Warnings: None
When Ray contacted Eli about Isobel not answering her phone or door, Eli was sure she’d gone off to pierce something. He didn’t start worrying until Friday morning, because even Isobel would have checked in by now, regardless of where she was. He still thought the probability was extremely high that she’d gone mountain climbing or decided to follow a band across America, but there was enough doubt in it that he decided to let himself into her apartment and see if any memories cropped up that were strange.
It was late in the afternoon, and Kathy had already picked Georgie up from Reliquary, and Eli handed the keys to Nana and glanced toward the kitchen, where he knew Julian was. “Julian, do you feel like an adventure?” he asked, deciding it was better to take someone along with him, just in case.
Julian was looking much better these days. His several weeks on the street had given him a rather sallow, mean look, as well as a stink that made Nana repossess the clothing he had hoarded and throw them into the trash bins several blocks down just to prevent him from digging them out again. Even after being thoroughly scrubbed and fed several meals, Julian still retained a tendency to grab at any food that was offered him, and he had an unfortunate habit of borrowing various objects and squirreling them away in the strangest places, like some kind of eccentric cat. He was also a lot quicker to interpret movements against him as aggression, which meant he was permanently banned from the tea room during business hours. He found enough to occupy him in the kitchen and back rooms, however, and he helped wash dishes. He had his arms elbow deep in soapy water and occasionally Nana had to call him back to reality and get him to stop playing with a bobbing rubber duckie and give the cups a proper scrub. His breakage rate had gone down to practically nothing, but initially it had been rather alarming.
Julian looked up at Eli’s call and wandered away from the water, not paying any attention to how much of it was streaming off of his arms. “What kind?” he asked, of mild interest. “Do we get to wear explorer hats?” Nana took the apron back and gave him a dishtowel to wipe off his hands.
Eli smiled fondly at the exchange with Nana, who had taken to treating Julian like some wayward, over-sized child, and he shook his head. “Nothing as interesting as all that. My cousin’s gone missing, it seems, and I’d like to see if there’s any indication in her apartment that anything is amiss, for starters,” he said, already slipping his arms into a brown, corduroy coat more suited to a teacher than the proprietor of a shop.
Nana snagged Julian’s waistband when he was halfway to the door and forced him into a coat. “Did anyone see who took her?” he asked, with rather disturbing cheerfulness, rather muffled because he had put on the coat backwards and the hood was in his face. They got him turned around in the end, Julian brushing the clucking Nana off with scowls.
Eli cocked his head, because Julian always surprised him with his sharp comments when he least expected it. “There’s no true proof she’s been taken. She might merely be out piercing something,” he explained, fishing his keys out of his pocket and then opening the door. “Come, before Nana feels the need to feed you before allowing you to go out and play,” he said, a fond smile for the woman over Julian’s shoulder.
Julian made a face. “That does not sound like an adventure.” But he followed Eli out of the door, idly scanning the road and then the cement as they moved along.
Eli was quiet most of the walk to the car, and it wasn’t until he was unlocking the doors that he regarded Julian curiously. “What makes you automatically assume she was taken?” he asked, that sharpness taking over his gaze the way it always did when he thought about whatever it was Julian did before crossing to humanity.
“You said she went missing,” Julian said, unsticking his shoe from a piece of gum on the sidewalk. “And if her apartment is the same... and she’s missing... not ‘gone off somewhere’...” He seemed to lose track of what he was saying, and then he bundled himself into the front seat without further comment. He pushed the radio button before the car was even on.
Eli turned on the car, his gaze staying on Julian just a few moments longer before he pulled out of the parking space. “She may have gone off somewhere. I merely meant she hasn’t been seen since the blackout,” he clarified. “I’ve not been in the apartment yet. What sort of things should we look for, do you think?” he asked, the picture of casual curiosity.
Julian flipped through radio stations at astonishing speed. “Toothbrush, purse, keys, toiletries, things she would take.” A short pause, a glance in the rearview mirror, and then another blurring press of buttons. “Blood.”
The fact that Eli was surprised that Julian left the mention of blood for last was, no doubt, telling. “My ability,” he said, finally, after a bit of silence. “It caused the children to appear on the stairs during the blackout. Should something like that happen in her apartment, there is no cause to worry,” he explained.
Julian looked over with full attention, a relative rarity. “...You create children?” He seemed to think this was a novel but perhaps unpleasant thing.
Eli smiled. “No, I make memories appear. Things that happened in a space, in a building. At some point in the past, those children ran up those stairs. My ability merely brings forth the memory. If something happened in Isobel’s apartment that is unpleasant, it will replay while we are in there. But it isn’t real, despite the fact that it will quite look it.”
“Oh, you mean, if she was killed, then she’d be killed again from someone else’s head.” Julian considered this, and then dismissed it. “That makes sense.” Even though it did, but to him, apparently... Julian’s oddness sometimes came in handy. Finally, he sat back and left the radio alone. It was a scratch community station, and some man was reading the news in a foreign language.
“Do you understand what is being said?” Eli asked, putting the car in park outside Bathos and looking over at the strange, young man beside him. “And shall we go through the window or the door, do you think?”
“No, who knows what they’re saying tomorrow, when it’s the end of day there.” Julian waved off Asian languages as if they were nothing at all, and then he got out and went into Bathos familiarly, though he had no idea where he was going, and stopped in the middle of the lobby.
“Second floor,” Eli said, motioning upward, and then moving ahead of Julian to lead the way, interpreting Julian’s entrance to the lobby as an indication the younger man preferred the front door as the best entryway into Isobel’s apartment. Eli wasn’t particularly skilled at breaking and entering, so he hoped Julian had some knowledge that would assist them in gaining entrance. “203,” he said, stopping in front of Isobel’s door.
Luckily, Eli didn’t have to worry about how they would break in the door, how they would get inside. The door was unlocked, and it only took a turn of the knob to grant them access. Once he’d stepped inside, he looked over his shoulder to make sure Julian was behind him, and then he began to look around. He didn’t touch the walls, not wanting any memories, not yet, and fighting them appearing without the contact as hard as he could.
Eli looked for anything strange, anything out of the ordinary.
Isobel’s keys were on the counter, along with her purse and cellphone, Thomas Brandon’s card sticking out of the purse’s pocket. He didn’t touch anything, and he backed up toward Julian. “We must call the police,” he said, because Isobel wouldn’t have left without her purse and keys; she wouldn’t have been able to.
Eli pulled the cellphone from his pocket, and he dialed, and as he did, the memory of a man grabbing Isobel and leading her out of the apartment flashed. Just as he was committing the man’s face to memory, another vision materialized. This time, it was Isobel speaking on the phone to someone named Gwen. Then it passed, and the 911 operator was speaking.