Page 102 of Installment Immortality

“And Carl is…?”

“Bogeyman. His apartment’s in the basement.” It was always dark down there, and distressingly echoey, thanks to the total lack of insulation. Cold, too. Perfect bogey territory, in other words. Sometimes I think they must be doing it on purpose, leading into an Addams aesthetic to convince themselves that they don’t mind being reduced to “the monster in the closet” while their close cousins, humanity, have free run of the planet. But if it is a conscious choice, it’s not hurting anyone, and I sort of enjoy their ongoing horror-movie approach to life.

“He handles the plumbing?”

“He handles everything that breaks in this building. If he can’t fix it, he explains to me why he can’t, and I call William. William either authorizes calling outside help, or he sends Candice. When he sends Candice, she spends a few hours with Carl, being convinced that we really need the outside help, and then we call them anyway. The dragons are surprisingly good about paying for improvements to the property. Candice says she’s just keeping up their investment, but the elevator is never broken for more than a few hours, and we have some tenants who can’t do stairs. I think she cares more than she wants to let on.”

“A lot of people care more than they want to let on,” Malena agreed.

The elevator dinged, doors opening on the ground-floor hallway. There were five units down here, all of them currently occupied, and the air smelled of roasting chicken and boiled cabbage. Good, clean, apartment smells. I sniffed appreciatively as I waved for Malena to follow me down the hall to Roz’s door.

I paused before knocking, glancing back to Malena. “Roz is a lesser gorgon. She knows we’re coming, so she should be wearing her glasses, but you need to be chill about the snakes,” I said.

Malena nodded.

I knocked.

The door opened a few seconds later, Roz’s narrow, worried face appearing in the gap. The snakes atop her head were writhing in agitation, hissing continuously, and some of them flashed their fangs when they saw me, threatening without pulling back to strike. She was wearing her tinted glasses, which would keep her gaze from stunning us, and as soon as she saw that it was me, she stepped back and began making gentle patting gestures at her hair, trying to calm it down.

“Verity! And… friend. Please, come in, both of you.” She stepped aside, letting us in.

Roz’s apartment was one of the one-bedroom layouts, barelylarge enough for her two cats to exist without playing out a constant war between themselves. The larger of the two watched us from the dining room table as we entered the apartment, triangular ears pressed flat. Malena looked at the cat and raised an eyebrow. The cat fled for the rear of the apartment, sprinting out of sight in a brown-and-tan blur.

“Bernie!” said Roz, sounding exasperated. She turned to Malena. “I’m sorry. She doesn’t like new people very much—or at all—but she’s not normally that hostile.”

“I’m a chupacabra,” said Malena, with a shrug. She glanced at me. “I would normally be a little more circumspect about that, but you’re not wearing a wig, so I figured that meant we were all friends here. Anyway, cats don’t like chupacabra, as a rule, because we’re bigger predators than they are, and they can respect that, while also wanting nothing to do with it.”

Something meowed by our feet, and I looked down in time to see a smaller, darker cat rub up against Malena’s ankles, tail held at a high, jaunty angle.

Roz coughed to hide her laughter. “You were saying?”

“Cats don’t like me,” said Malena, sounding faintly stunned. She bent to pick up the darker cat, holding it under the arms, so that its hind legs dangled. It looked at her with trusting green eyes, starting to purr. “I think this one is broken.”

“That’s Ursal,” said Roz. “He likes everyone, has no sense of self-preservation, and likes to pounce on my snakes when I’m laying down. He’s going to get himself bitten one of these days.” She smiled, leaning over to take her cat back from Malena. He continued purring, even as he balled up in her arms.

“Weird,” said Malena.

“Fascinating, but I am ridiculously pregnant, and standing around like this is hurting my knees,” I said. “Can you show us the sink?”

“Of course,” said Roz. “This way.” She waved for us to followas she turned and walked toward the kitchen, still carrying the world’s friendliest cat.

Friendly until she stepped over the threshold into the kitchen. Then Ursal puffed up like he’d been hit with an electric prod, hissing angrily, and jumped down from her arms, following the first cat into the depths of the apartment.

“They don’t like whatever’s going on with the water,” said Roz.

I hadn’t even seen what she was describing, and I didn’t like what was going on with the water. She led us to the sink and gestured for us to look.

I leaned forward, trying not to get too close. There was something small and gelatinous huddled in one corner of the sink. It was almost clear but had a reddish tint that made the back of my brain itch, like I should know what this was. I frowned, resisting the urge to lean closer.

Malena wasn’t that careful. She leaned in, getting as close a look as she could without actually sticking her head into the sink. “You say that came out of the tap?” she asked. “Because if it did, you need to have a serious talk with your landlord about fixing the filters.”

“Yeah, we’re gonna do that,” I said, leaning back a bit. “Malena, maybe don’t get so close?”

The gelatinous lump quivered, pulling back on itself like it was trying to gather its strength. Then, with surprising speed, it lashed out at Malena, falling roughly a foot shy of hitting her face.

Her face. Where her eyes were. My own eyes widened as I realized what this had to be, and I grabbed her by the shoulders, yanking her away from the sink. She gave me a shocked look.

“What?”

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