wax and feathers

Arthur Dudley was found lounging on his plastic pool chair, covered in a thick, wax-like substance and black feathers. The wax had pooled about the concrete in the summer heat, mixed with molten globs of flesh, and stretched out from the body on either side in a long wing-span. His eyes, wide and thick with branches of red, clawing veins, stared up at the sun as skin pulled away from muscle. 

Detective Morris wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. The sun was searing through his uniform, the dull hum of the scanners digging into his eardrums, his concentration. The abrupt stench of chlorine bit at his nostrils as the forensics team blurred around him, busied and frantic. He only looked to the body; another one claimed in the madness of this heat. With no call for rain in over two months, the drought was cracking through more than just dried dirt. 

Morris left the pool from the white gate, shouldered his way through the tall maze-like greenery of the gardens, and approached the open patio of the Dudley mansion. A single glance could not contain the breadth of its brilliance and magnitude; romantic in its texture, gothic in its form. 

Arthur Dudley, an infamous steel heir turned tech tycoon, owned the largest estate in all of the Higher Elms. He desired to tear reality at its seams, boasted that he could; as a man who wanted to unravel the universe, there was no surprise he was either vindicated or reproached, no in-between. 

Iris Dudley sat inside by the large window, eyes dry but unseeing. An officer was behind her, but she seemed to pay him no mind; kept fanning herself with her sun hat. She was a petite specimen, brown, mouse-like hair cut short, so that it curled just around the base of her ears, short bangs swept slightly above her brow. 

Morris crossed the threshold and Iris immediately looked to him, fingers crumbling the lip of her hat as she stalked over to him with a purpose. Her nails were a seething shade of red. “Detective, I want your vermin off my property,” she spat, jabbing her pointed finger and the hat into Morris’ chest. She had just returned from a weekend of philanthropy, only to find her husband a puddle by the pool.

He merely breathed, counted to ten, and stared down at her perfectly manicured nails. He pushed her away calmly, gently. “We’re collecting evidence, Mrs. Dudley. It takes--” 

“Oh please, it’s a waste of time. I know exactly who did this to my husband.” Her voice was just an octave too high. He could see her vocal chords strain at the throat, the way it pulled from the collarbone, long and taut. 

Morris looked to the officer behind Iris, nodded for him to leave. “And who do you suspect, Mrs. Dudley?” 

“The maids,” she whispered harshly, eyes wild about the foyer. He forced away the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. 

“All of them?” Morris asked, tilting his head at the woman. Paranoia spotted her forehead; he could see the stains of it peeking out from under the armpits of her silken blouse. 

“I can’t be certain,” Iris muttered, pacing away from him, fanning herself furiously. She turned back abruptly. “But it has to be one of them, it has to be.” The sharp clack of her heels echoed up and into the tall ceiling.

Morris stuffed his hands into his pockets, amused. “On what grounds?” 

“An affair, of course,” Iris offered, blinking. “My husband and I were not shy of lovers. I know when there’s a new woman in these walls, I can sniff her out. It’s always the cheap perfume, the look of wonder in their eyes--fools who believe they can take him from me.” She laughed, but it didn’t quite meet her eyes. “God, those girls were nothing more than playthings.” 

“But to kill him, then, in such a way? Why?”

“Oh, I can’t pretend to know those things,” she said, fanning the query away with her hat. “Maybe they wised up.” She stopped fanning herself, then, stared down at the marbled floor. 

Detective Morris observed her, waited for her to continue. She remained silent, as if snagged by the scythe of death’s reality. 

He cleared his throat. “If you don’t mind, I would like to take a look around your home.” 

“Yes, fine,” she said, her voice a low, rasped croak. “Just get these vermin out of my home as soon as you can.” She fell into a seat by the window and stared out toward the pool. 

Detective Morris walked about the home, seeing reflections of himself on all the polished surfaces. The home was clean, tall, stately, and sparse—the furniture, albeit tasteful, looked lonesome, underutilized. He questioned how much of the home these people actually used, or actually needed. 

He proceeded up the black, spiraling stairs and found himself before the master bedroom. Tall double doors remained partially opened and he invited himself within, surprised to see the space in a state of unkempt. Red, silken sheets scattered about the floor in a puddle, a pillow thrown up against the wall near the door. 

Morris left the room, followed the hallway down to a heavy wooden door with a golden, ornate knob. He jostled it, but there was no give—it was locked. 

There was very little Morris liked to thank his father for, but the ability to pick a lock—a dying art in this age—was truly a precious skill. 

As the soft click of metal reached his ears, Morris knew the door had given in to his hand. The door crooned open to reveal a small study; warm, earthen, and masculine. Old, leather bound books lined shelved walls. A large window at the back overlooked the pool below. Morris peered out of it, could see the body, a gelatinous sight from up above, almost glinting in the sun’s rays. The officers were questioning the help in the gardens. In this heat, everyone was sweating; made it difficult to spot the liar. 

The detective turned from the window and searched through the oak desk at the center of the room. The drawers seemingly held nothing of import—perhaps what Arthur had wanted an outsider to believe. His fingers felt along the wood until a small indentation, the outline of a circle, caught his attention. He pressed and there was a faint crack above him, papers shifting. A small square of the desk had popped open at the top. 

Carefully he pushed the papers away, opened the lid further to reveal a hidden compartment with a green velvet lining. Newspaper clippings, contracts, financials, and laboratory photos littered the interior—Arthur at the helm of his latest ambition, a teleportation capsule. Grave faces, clad in white, surrounded him; a blurred figure was caught behind the glass. Morris remembered the stories about the accident that nearly cost Arthur his whole army of investors, and how quickly the news of it died against bribed lips. No names, no confirmation. Merely speculation and movement forward, life as usual. 

Morris thumbed through the papers until he came across some lined paper, folded tightly into a small square. Delicately he unfolded the sheet—a simple note, dated for five months prior. “Meet CR. 7:30pm.” No other letters shared the same initial. 

He made to exit the room, to gather a team to scan this space for evidence, when at the corner of his eye he spotted a black strap poke out from behind the left-hand bookshelf. Pulling at it with his pen, Morris discovered a crumpled black bra, much too small, too plain, to belong to the woman of the house. 

The nights were long in the days that followed, a detective shrouded in the blue light of a darkened office, clad in wrinkled button-downs and rolled up sleeves, pouring over the remains of life. The autopsy report glared bright on the screen in the dark office. The wax had not caused the man’s end. Ethylene glycol, siphoned down the throat of an unconscious body, had killed Arthur Dudley from the inside—a slow, brutal death. Scans indicated a sharp build-up of crystals, calcium opalate, had sliced up his kidneys, spreading outward. The wax had been applied post-mortem. The heat wouldn’t allow it to harden, only seeped through flesh and pulled the man apart. And yet there was no trace of the killer on the body, or anywhere in the home. Not even the bra. 

For hours Morris dug through Arthur’s financial records, found hidden in that study. He traced large funds to an account under the name Icarus. Odd sums mainly, sporadic in delivery. Suspicious, surely, for all but a man like Arthur Dudley. Why would a bank question the source of their best investment?

The financials, the contracts, they all pointed to Arthur’s Daedalus project, the catastrophic first attempt at creating human teleportation. His letters were damning; pushing for human tests when a cat returned inside-out. But failure had only been the first step toward success; Dudley was blinded by the esteem, the power of its delectable advancement. Greed, the poisoned ambrosia, fogged his mind of reason, of ethics. 

Morris returned to the man behind the glass. With such a blurred image, the computer faced hours trying to restructure an identity. For most of the week, Morris watched the image pixelate and blur, until coffee no longer allowed his eyes to remain open. It was when he grabbed his coat to leave for home that the computer screamed at him to halt. 

An Ezra Rosario, assistant researcher and guinea pig, appeared before Morris with a look of trepeditation creasing the space between his brows. 

He was alive, miraculously, living with his sister, albeit in a vegetable state. A Carmen Rosario, ex-military. A Vulture, designed and augmented by none other than Arthur Dudley himself. A family of guinea pigs. 

It felt too god-given to ignore. 

Detective Morris climbed the dilapidated stairs of the Lower Elm’s apartment complex; short, grey buildings shrouded in a mist of smoke, heat, and red neon lighting. He located apartment twenty-two, as noted in the brief profile, and knocked lightly on the door, checked the gun at his hip. The building was sweltering, even in the night air. 

A woman opened the door, pulling down on her sleeves. He only caught a glimpse of black feathers inked onto her skin, down to the wrists. Her eyes were large, golden with flecks of ashen brown; curled black hair was tied back loosely behind her neck. 

“Who are you?” she asked, her voice smooth and low. Suspicion glared through her irises. He knew he needed to lie, to sway her trust. 

“A case worker from Andover Hospital,” Morris responded, “To check on your brother’s progress.” 

“At nine-o’clock on a Saturday?” she asked, seemingly amused. “I haven’t heard from the hospital in over a month.” 

Morris cleared his throat, “Staff turnover…”

“It’s fine,” she waved off his words. “You can come in. I’m just glad they finally sent someone.” 

He nodded, ducking into the apartment. 

It was a small space, not more than 600 square feet. There was one small fan in the corner, colorful string the only indication that wind was blowing through the room; not that Morris could really feel it. 

Together with Carmen they scrunched through the kitchen and into a small den with a bed (a mattress on the floor, tattered and stained), a broken television with spattered visuals, and a glass encasement—arguably, the nicest, most expensive item in the entire apartment. 

A man, seemingly, was held captive in that long glass cylinder, connected to a breathing apparatus. A dull click of the machines cut through the warm air. Though undoubtedly Ezra Rosario, the young man’s body was warped beyond recognition; a fractured amalgamation of human, glass, and… something in-between. Mangled; unspared. 

“He wakes up from time to time,” Carmen told him, crossing her arms as she looked upon her brother behind the glass. “During some nights he’ll wake up screaming, banging on the glass.” She paused. “If I let him out, though, he’ll die.” 

“Did the hospital supply this… machinery?” Morris was surprised, given the woman’s surroundings, that something such as this was within her budget. 

“No,” she admitted, eyes cutting to Morris. “A generous donor.” 

“I see,” Morris said, nodding slowly. Her eyes were too sharp. “Was there no compensation for the accident?”

“Ezra signed a liability clause before the tests. Agreed that the company wasn’t responsible for any mishaps—since he volunteered freely.” Morris could almost taste the bitterness on her tongue. “His name didn’t even reach the papers. The reporters were bought out, I’m sure of it.” 

“Why did your brother agree to the project?” Morris asked, stepping closer to the glass, the shape of flesh within. 

“Notoriety, I guess. Persuaded by the notion of history in the making,” she offered. “Arthur Dudley’s experiments had been successful in the past. He trusted him. My brother may have been working toward his doctorate, but he was an idiot when it came to people.”

“Many are,” Morris said, “I can hardly blame him, though, for wanting to see the best in people.” 

Carmen watched Morris for a moment; he could sense her judgment. “Would you like water, by any chance? Or tea?” 

“Water would be fine, thank you,” Morris turned to her, but she was already through the doorway, clattering around glassware in the kitchen cabinets. 

“I’m afraid I don’t have any ice,” she called. He heard the faucet creak and open. 

“That’s quite all right,” he said, spotting a pile of bills on a nightstand by the mattress. Carefully, he thumbed through the visible pages. 

No, not just bills. Payment confirmations. Twenty thousand in medical supplies. 

The faucet had not yet turned off from the kitchen; he had time to look further, shifted through the papers. Found a short receipt from a supply store, dated two weeks ago. Anti-freeze, and lots of it. 

Cold metal pressed against the base of his skull, followed by a click. The faucet was still running in the kitchen. “You have five seconds to tell me why I shouldn’t put a bullet through your head.” 

Morris raised his hands. “You’re ex-military,” is all he said. “A Vulture.” Those eyes, a dead giveaway. They belonged to a hunter. A devourer. 

“Five,” she said, nudging the muzzle further into his skin. “Four.”

“I’m not here to hurt you or your brother.”

“Three.”

“Were you the woman Arthur Dudley was seeing?” Was it the only way she could’ve gotten close to him? 

Her hand wavered; he could feel the metal shift. 

“Two.” Her voice was a rasp. 

He could feel the tension of her finger on the trigger, and knew she would not hesitate. “One.”

In a swift motion, he pivoted as the bullet screamed past his ear and into the loose drywall, just missing the glass encasement. He grabbed her wrist, twisted—the gun clattering to the floor, a stray bullet splintering the wood as it exited, nearly grazing his ankles. 

They struggled against each other, bodies straining to overcome their opponent. Her arms were solid, sure. She was a force, purely offensive; her eyes seemed to glow in the excitement of it all. 

He blocked her advances, but within a very short window. He could feel the drain of these past weeks melt through his body.

She slammed him into the wall and the breath was knocked from his lungs. He couldn’t move, only clutch at his throat, waiting for the air to return. Remembered the gun at his hip, concealed by the coat.

“Arthur Dudley was a monster,” she said, picking up the gun from the floor. She checked the ammo, shoved the magazine back in, pointed the barrel at the detective before her, his hands clutching his side in pain. “I used him to get money to help my brother. Gave myself to the man. It was easy, once he found out I was one of his creations.” 

A bead of sweat dripped down Morris’ face. He looked up to Carmen, her eyes like golden spheres. 

“He gave me everything I asked,” she paused, looking to her brother, pain swept over her features. “But it wasn’t good enough. He couldn’t give me my brother back.”

“So you killed him,” Morris spoke, voice like gravel, his hand locking onto the gun at his side. 

“People always blame Icarus for flying too close to the sun. But it was Daedalus who gave him those wings in the first place,” Carmen said, steadying her aim. “I can’t have you squandering my efforts.” 

A shot rang out in the room. 

Carmen looked down at her arm, wires torn open, black liquid pooling out and onto the floor. 

She darted away, past the detective on the floor. 

Another shot, clipping her back. He heard glass shattering, a body hitting the pavement below. Running. 

Slowly, Morris stood to his feet. 

He limped over to the brother, placed a hand to the glass, sweat beading off of his skin. He called in back-up, but Carmen was already gone.