Rosemary and Rue

He sighed. The bedsprings creaked as he stood. “My kids will be here in the morning,” he said, and that was the last thing I knew before the sun slanting through my bedroom window hit my face and brought me slowly back to consciousness.

I peeled my eyes open, staring at the ceiling. Not dead. That was a start. The inside of my mouth tasted terrible, and my head felt like it had been the ball in the all-Summerlands soccer finals. Adding this to the pain in my shoulder and thigh, I figured I should just stay asleep until sometime in, say, March. I’d already managed to sleep through dawn, thus proving that iron poisoning and blood loss are the best knockout drugs known to man.

At least I wasn’t bleeding, thanks to Devin and Lily. If I could get through a few hours without someone deciding the world would be a better place without me in it, I might actually start feeling like a normal person again.

Levering myself into a sitting position, I fumbled for my robe on the bedroom floor, and frowned as I realized the cats weren’t demanding to be fed. “That’s weird.” Cagney and Lacey always demanded breakfast when they saw signs that I might be awake. “Girls?”

There was no reply.

Frowning, I pulled on my robe and left the room, scanning for signs of my feline roommates. “Girls? Kitty-kitty? Hey, not funny, you two . . .” They still didn’t answer. At least my leg was holding up my weight without much of a complaint.

Devin was gone, as I’d expected; he hadn’t even bothered to leave a note. Only the mug on my hallway table, sides caked with thick yellow gunk, proved that he’d actually been there. I picked it up and paused, throat tightening. The light on my answering machine was blinking.

“Please, not again,” I said, and pressed the button. The machine beeped.

“October, this is Pete.” My manager sounded deeply unhappy to be talking to my answering machine. Considering how difficult it was to get decent help on the night shift, I couldn’t blame him.

“Oh, crap,” I said, leaning against the wall. I knew what came next. I’d been hearing it a lot since I got out of the pond.

“I covered for you as best I could, but you’ve been a no-call, no-show for two nights now. I’m afraid we’re going to have to let you go. Your last paycheck will be mailed to the address we have on file.” He hesitated, adding, “Whatever this is . . . I just hope you’re all right.”

The message ended.

“Gunshot wounds, iron poisoning, missing cats, dead friend, and now I need to find a new job,” I muttered, pushing away from the wall and swallowing my relief at the fact that it hadn’t been something worse. No one else was dead. After the things that had been happening lately, that was a mercy in and of itself. “Damn it, Evening. Couldn’t you have found yourself a flunky who didn’t have to pay the rent?”

I walked into the living room, wincing when I saw the gun on the coffee table. Someone was really trying to have me killed, and the gun in my living room suddenly looked like a symbol of the entire damn mess. I kicked the coffee table with my good leg, sending the gun sliding across the floor to vanish behind the curtains.

“Screw you, Evening!” I shouted. “Screw your duty and your dying and . . . and your going off and leaving me to deal with this alone!” I stopped, fury spent as quickly as it had come. It wasn’t doing anyone any good. Not even me.