Accidental God 2.0 -- Section 12

[This wasn't the hardest thing I've ever written. (No, that's always the next section.) But it was hard figuring out that it had to be written. I was trying to bring over a scene from my first attempt at this novel, and it wasn't working. I finally figured out why: the scene no longer had a purpose in the story.

[So I'm setting that aside and moving on to something else, which, to my surprise, is a new character and an entirely new plot thread.

[Yay.]

    Sergeant Williston Mako of the Northern Lights Police Department had been shot twice while on duty, once when in uniform and once undercover. The first was a bank robbery gone bad, but at his wife’s insistence he’d had his vest on and he walked away with only bruising. The second time had involved a laundromat and a surprisingly valuable whites cycle--and had put him in the hospital for nearly a month. Will had always assumed that being shot would bother him, cause emotional trauma, make him seek out a new line of work.
    Instead, Will made a decision: he was going to get every penny he could from his job, even if that meant living in what his (now ex-) wife called ‘the twilight of moral ambiguity.’ Also, interestingly enough, being shot had cured Will of his insomnia. He slept the restful sleep of a man who knew he had gone too far and had no interest in coming back.
    So it wasn’t too surprising that the man had to almost shout at Will to wake him up.
    “Sergeant Mako,” said the man again. Will blinked at him in the light that slanted out through the bathroom door--he slept with it on, since he hated bumping into things in the dark and he hand’t cleaned too often since his wife left.
    “You’re in my house,” said Will.
    “We thought it would be the best place to find you,” said the woman. She sounded amused. They always came together, the man and the woman, and always in the dark. Will had never seen their faces clearly, though the woman sounded like she must be beautiful. He’d been tempted to turn on a light a time or two, but not after he opened the first bag they brought him. That bag had turned into a weekend in Vegas, and while he was never going there again (such a waste of his money!) he wasn’t about to risk interfering with any more bags coming his way. So Will left the lights out and smiled. He’d done what he’d promised, so the man and woman couldn’t have any complaints. What that meant was another job, and another bag, and Will liked bags.
    “What can I do for you good people?” he asked, blinking at the sand in his eyes. Clearly he hadn’t slept enough, but the man and woman were worth waking up for.
    “Things didn’t go as we expected,” said the man. His voice was calm and even, but that didn’t tell Will much. The man had been calm and even when he’d calmly and evenly said that they were going to kill a god. Will felt his heart rate pick up. He wasn’t scared of these two, or at least he didn’t have any reason to be scared, except that there was something about them, like a gun waiting to be fired or a knife hidden in the hand.
    “Did I miss something?” he asked. “We found the bodies and staked our claim. Like you said, we couldn’t keep the TCD away from Forgotten Zed’s place, but they didn’t even come after the other corpses. Maybe they’re not as good as you thought, since this is just a little branch out here. What do they have, five people?”
    The woman laughed. Then they stood in silence. Will swallowed.
    “Even if they do come around,” he said, “they won’t get anywhere. At least not very fast. I’ve made it clear that these are my cases, and I’m not letting go. Besides, the captain isn’t a fan of the TCD, so they’re going to have to go so far over my head, they’ll get a nosebleed before they get access to these bodies.”
    There was silence again.
    “Is that why you’re here?” asked Will.
    “No,” said the man. “You remember that we asked you to find the two bodies.”
    “Sure. The man and the woman.”
    “We heard there was a third.”
    Will sat up in his bed and nodded. “Sure, Baernson. We found the big guy, too--first, actually--and figured he was part of the mess, so I locked it all down. This case isn’t going to get me any promotions, but I can guarantee you that nobody’s finding out who killed all these people.”
    “That’s unfortunate,” said the man.
    Will blinked. “What?”
    “He said that it’s unfortunate,” said the woman.
    “That’s what I thought,” said Will. “Why?”
    “Because the last man wasn’t part of our plan. As I said, things didn’t go as we expected.”
    Will started to relax again. He really hadn’t done anything wrong, and it was looking more and more like these two actually did have another job for him. “I suppose there’s something you’d like me to do?”
    “Find out who killed the extra man.”
    The woman laughed again. “We want you to actually do your job, Sergeant Mako.”
    “But,” Will coughed, “I assume you want to be the first ones to know what I find.”
    “The only ones,” said the man.
    “Interesting,” said Will. “Thing is, I’ve already done what you paid me for, and I know that the city already gives me a salary to do what you’re asking, but still--”
    A brown paper bag landed on the blanket between Will’s knees.
    “There’s a phone in there as well,” said the man. “It only has one number in the memory. Call us when you have something useful.”
    Will looked at the bag and licked his lips. He felt stupid, licking his lips like that, but money did that to him. He liked having it. He liked spending it, even on the smallest things. A pack of mints on the way home. Even paying a library fine. He kept books out too long intentionally, just for the feeling of spending money. In fact, it never hurt to ask for more. The man and woman clearly had enough.
    “Will there be any kind of bonus if I find her quickly?” asked Will, looking up, but his room was empty. He hated it when they did that.