Elton puts his hand on her shoulder. "It's over now. Mostly, anyway. Are you okay?"
It takes a moment for her to answer.
"Honestly?" She looks at him, brows furrowed. "Yeah. I think I am."
He nods, giving her a smile. "What do you want to do with dickless downstairs?"
"I guess I have to take him back to America. And I have to get my shit from the pocket dimension. So I will be stealing from him." She nods to herself, suddenly aware of all the blood she's lost. It's all down her front, leaching from her saturated shirt into her jeans. "Yes. Good plan. My chest is open."
Hmm. Her chest is open. That doesn't bode well. Maybe she can put some plastic in there and watch the blood well up like the world's silliest aquarium, until it overflows and breaks the bounds, and spills out like sharks and starfish.
When Kepler smacks her leg gently, Tiff shakes her head to break the haze setting in over her. "Right. Yeah. No— I can do the other two later. Come back with the Accord and pack it full of books or something. Boris takes precedence, and that's... Fuck, do I have to call the agent again?"
Kepler gives her a come on look.
"Right. I could text him. Tie this guy up and text him— leashes and ropes."
"How do you plan on smuggling him back into the States?" Elton waves off his own question. "Right, portals."
She shrugs. "Eh. I've had my fill of portals today. I think the government can come collect their special little boy if they want him so bad."
Frederick comes up next to Tiff, skull grinning as he looks to her. "Quite the night, I'd say. If you need to rest up and do whatever you need to do, I can look after our friend. If he causes me any trouble, I'll hit him in the head with my arm. I was quite the boxer in my day."
He waves the arm that fell off at her. It rattles gently like a child's clapper toy.
She can't help but chuckle. "Somehow, I don't doubt that. Let me gag and bind him first— not in a fun way— and I'll be back in a few hours."
"Excellent! Suppose I'll have the old place to myself after all of this is said and done. Or maybe I'll go walking about the country and scare passing motorists!"
"Sounds like a plan. I think you could haunt your own home—"
"Oh!" he interrupts. "Yes, before you go... I'd like you to have something."
"But what is it?"
"Follow me and you'll see. I think you'll find it very interesting."
The skeletal man beckons the teens with a wave of his boney hand and heads down to the basement where Dingus sits next to Boris still in his hellhound form.
"You see, my family was— and I imagine still is— full of eccentrics. At least, that's what we were called in my day. Collectors of the macabre, the strange, and the queer. Myself included."
Tiff chuckles, but doesn't say anything. It's probably not a great idea to make that joke to a guy who died in 1954.
"Most of it was silly trinkets and the like. But not everything. Right before I died, I came into possession of a book," he continues. After a moment of looking around, he points to the wall on the other side of the basement where an old, battered china cabinet sits. "Ah, it's still there! Could we move these boxes?"
A few moments later, after Tiff explains everything to Elton and the two of them force their injured bodies to move Boris's boxes, the way is clear and the large cabinet is pushed aside. The exposed section of wall looks similar to everywhere else, all dark bricks and mildew, until Frederick presses a point and the wall separates to slide open. Cobwebs on the other side dance in the sudden wind.
Pleased with himself, Fred explains, "There are a few of these tucked away in the house! This is what I call the vault. It hasn't been opened in many, many years. So... do mind your steps down."
Tiff assesses it. The stairs are made of brick and stone, not of half-rotted wood. She isn't sure if she trusts them, but she certainly trusts them more than the basement steps.
He begins his descent down rickety old steps until he's well under the basement and in a sub-basement. "Come along now!" he calls. "Time waits for no-one!"
Tiff translates everything for Elton on her way down. She calls after Frederick, "If you're about to Cask of Amontillado us with the promise of cool books, I'll never forgive you!"
"Oh, goodness! I wouldn't dream of it. Such a grisly tale Poe spun."
"I think you would love The Slob," she laughs. She pauses to hit Elton's arm gently. "Oh, or we could make him watch Camp Bloodshed."
"Psh. Camp Bloodshed is weak. Fun, but weak."
"Listen, listen— we can't throw him into Nekromantik or Slaughtered Vomit Dolls immediately."
"I haven't seen those. I'm not sure if I want to."
"Probably not. One's about necrophilia and the other is vomit fetish shit."
"Gross, Tiff. What next? Vore?"
She sighs deeply, still plodding down the stairs. "You'd be surprised. You ever seen Sunny Valley Throats?"
Behind the two of them, Kepler squeaks.
"Right. Kepler didn't like that one. The snake girl swallowed a rat first. It's like— it's like Carrie but, instead of being psychic, she's a snake? She eats a bunch of people at the Snowflake Dance. And then they kill her." Tiff pauses. "It's worth mentioning that it's also technically a Christmas movie. In addition to being about vore."
"The fuck? That sounds..." Elton throws his hands in the air. "I don't even know. Sounds like someone's fetish."
"Probably is."
Elton steps into the cool sub-basement. Frederick is standing next to maybe everything in the world— but mostly a table stacked high with books, a few loose pieces of jewelry with weird symbols, and a large book he holds tenderly in his hands. He considers it and asks, "So, what are we looking at?"
Tiff barely listens for an answer. She's too busy taking it all in, remembering all those times, as a kid, when the babysitter would sneak her princess movies to watch when her parents weren't home, hidden in Living Scripture DVD cases. She had always been envious of their libraries and their secret rooms— and here's one in her real life, one she's standing in. Like a shot of hope directly to her head, there it is. She almost forgets to breathe. She almost forgets that part of her pleural cavity is visible. Kepler smacks her leg to remind her.
Frederick gestures to the room around him. "It was the family's vault, of sorts. Precious things were kept here. It appears it's been undisturbed for some time, thankfully. Still, not much here worth anything other than monetary value, I'm sure."
"Everything is worth something— worth its weight in knowledge, worth its weight in— Oh, god, this is amazing!"
Since his face can't stop, Frederick's pleasant smile comes through more in his voice. "You're all welcome to take anything from here. Sell it, keep it, do whatever. I'm a skeleton, what do I need trinkets and baubles for? As I said earlier, though, there were some items that we came across that were... more than they seemed. This book would probably be the greatest thing I had ever found. It is an Elven Spell Tome."
Tiff's eyes go wide; her voice goes airy. "Can I see it?"
"Not only can you see it, my dear, you can have it. I was aware of magic. I could even do a few spells myself. Not anything so great as what I've seen tonight, but still. My uncle was a member of a secret order I wasn't supposed to know about and was likely the cause of my death. For this. I know this is what it is and the genuine article because my Harold was Elven. Not fully, of course, but this book was in his family for as long as he could remember. And now..." He extends the large book to Tiff. "It's yours. I beg of you to not sell or give it away, but cherish it and learn from it."
She squeals in a way she's going to feel weird about later and accepts it eagerly. "Oh, Frederick— You don't know how much this means! It was Elven folklore and history that got me into this! Kind of. Woodland Crafters— Bigfoot— were also involved. But—" She squeals again, like a line of exclamation points and incoherent babbling, and cracks it open to somewhere near the middle. "This is amazing, Fred. Thank you." Book still in hand, she scoops him up in a hug.
Frederick pats Tiff on the back as he accepts it. "Ah, real human contact. It is strange to me that I can feel that. So strange indeed."
"Well, neither of us are dead right now."
"I'm not sure, dear Tiff. I certainly feel it. Now go on, friends. You've been through quite an ordeal today and I think you should rest. I will hold down the fort, as they say."
"I still have to tie up Boris on the way out," she says, more as a reminder to herself than anyone else.
"Yes, we should take care of that. Have you called your agent yet?"
"I did earlier, but— Fuck. Do I have to call him again?" She looks down at Kepler and lowers her voice to a whisper. "Do I have to call him again?"
He squeaks in the affirmative.
"God. Okay. I'll tie Boris up, then I'll call the agent. And then I'm going to bed."
"Go call your guy. I'll tie this fucker up," Elton decides. He asks, as soon as the thought crosses his mind, "How's he gonna piss?"
Genuinely unsure about how to answer that question, she asks, "What?"
"He has no dick. I don't know how much got... ripped apart down there. Just a thought, really. You go make your call. I'll take care of Boris."
"Oh, god." Her blood runs cold. "I wasn't accounting for it. I think I might have sealed his urethra shut."
"Oh my God. Fuck. I... what do we do? Do we drop him off at a fucking hospital?"
"I will, um— I will call my boss. To see what to do about it." She dreads the thought of having to explain what she did to Dr. Deseret, who will probably be more than delighted. That's the issue with working for a woman who has been alive since around 1846 or so: she's lost it more than a little. She's competent, sure, but she has an insane obsession with horses and she's always encouraging Tiff to just do things. "She's a doctor. She can— We'll call the agent first, just so we can make sure someone is on the way, and then— Fuck."
"I know he's an evil piece of shit, but I don't want to be cruel."
"I know. I know." She pulls her hair gently, like that's somehow going to hurt more than what's going on in her chest.
"Just hang in there, Boris," Elton calls up the stairs. "We'll get you a new piss hole soon enough!"
The two of them race up the stairs to prepare their various parts of the plan. Tiff grabs a couple knives, a jar, and a length of tubing she washes out in the sink. She wishes she could get her hands on some distilled water, but she figures that Dingus blowing hot air through it is close enough to sterilization that it's going to be fine. Anything else she needs, she can send Kepler upstairs to get. He's a great little assistant, anyway.
At the same time, Elton rummages around until he finds enough cord and rope to tie Boris to one of the basement's supports so he's incapable of pretty much anything. Satisfied, he pats his handiwork and rocks back from his knees into standing. "That should hold him. Fuck, maybe we should have killed him."
"I'm not killing him. Give me a moment to call Doctor— fuck. She's a doctor, that's all you get. For now." Thank god she called the agent on the way up the stairs and it went to voicemail like some sort of retaliation. She can't take two conversations. Tiff dials the second-most personal number Dr. Kit Deseret has. It's a Tuesday; Kit Deseret is a bit of a night owl; and there's no reason to think she wouldn't be at the morgue.
Tiff groans in the two rings it takes the doctor to pick up. She's going to get such shit for this when she gets back.
"Who is this doctor that you're calling?" Elton thinks that, if he's going to be here while she does this, he at least deserves to know.
"I told you, I work in a morgue. She's the pathologist there. I can trust her— She's... very experienced. And from Utah, but that doesn't matter." And she had an affair with one of Tiff's ancestors, and she ate a horse one time, and she worked on the Manhattan project— but none of that particularly matters, so she doesn't say anything about it. She just hands Elton her phone so she doesn't have to put it on the floor.
Despite his curiosity, he thinks it best that he doesn't watch, so he holds her phone up like a speaker and takes out his own to tell Ben he'll call him as soon as possible. Given the time of night, Ben doesn't text him back.
*****
Crisis averted through tubing, sterile glass, and the drawl of one since-hung-up-on vampire doctor, Tiff stands up and wipes the literal sweat from her forehead. "That was... certainly something. Certainly the first time I ever did that. Creating a stoma is fucking insane."
Performing that surgery on someone with an encyclopedic knowledge of his own body and a propensity for visceral magic certainly helped, though. By this point, Boris has given up, it would seem— and he's out cold.
Elton hands her back the phone. "I think it's time to go."
"I know." She wants to wash her hands; she wipes them on the sides of her jeans instead. There's enough blood there that it blends right in. "You're driving. Obviously."
"Obviously. We'll be back, Fred!" he calls down the stairs to the vault. The skeleton is still puttering down around there, he thinks. "I doubt our friend will be much of a problem, but... do what you must!"
Leaving is simple. Elton calls for Dingus; the dog comes bounding down from upstairs and skids to a halt at Elton's side. He pants gently, pleased with whatever he's done. Elton opens the front door to the rain-soaked night and, wordlessly, exhaustedly, starts the walk down the gravel path to his car.
Tiff pauses on the stoop and looks up at the sky, pouring heavy drops onto an already-wet ground. Did it stop raining for a bit, she wonders? Or has it been going all night?
She doesn't want it inside her chest cavity, she knows. She's had enough foreign objects in there today. She pauses to put the second shirt from her back pocket, blood-crusted as it is, on over the shirt she's already wearing, then to shove the spell tome under it to protect it from the rain. Snapping her fingers to remind Kepler to come with, she follows Elton out into the world. It's time to leave the house, however briefly, behind.