Dead Yet Breathing

“Pink pomegranate juice.” She said as she held the wingless up to the light. “Better than red wine, cheaper too!”

“You're so strange, Annette.” Vivian laughed and tossed her brown curls over her shoulder as she sipped her drink. The sun bled through the open windows as a hot summer breeze filled the pink curtains like exotic sails.

“It's my most endearing trait. Pastry?”

“They're pink. Pink cookies frighten me.” She said, as she reached out for one. Vivian pushed an errant curl behind her ear and fixed Annette with a penetrating, blue gaze. “So, is it done with? I assume that's why you called me here. To discuss... It.”

“Finish your pastry, then we'll talk.”

Vivian complied. As she chewed, she took the opportunity to study her companion's face, searching the fading complexion and slightly creased skin, the prim lips, the arched, greying eyebrows, the dark eyes, for an answer to her inquiry. But Annette's expression was a careful mask of polite boredom.

Nothing about their meeting hinted at its sinister purpose. The fine parlor they sat in was the place for idle gossip and good society, not secrets and revenge. Annette's blue suit and the sweeping blue hat which clung to her tidy gray hair spoke nothing of her profession. Vivian's own clothes, dark jeans and a red tank top, did not seem the kind of thing that someone who employed Annette should wear.

And yet, contrary to all appearances, they both knew they were there to discuss It.

Vivian finished her pastry.

“More to drink?” Annette offered.

“No, no thank you. I'm still finishing my first.”

“Well, no hurry. Go ahead and enjoy that and then I'll let you try some of this delicious pomegranate juice and then we can get down to business. Sound good?”

Vivian muffled a sigh of annoyance and gulped the drink. She held out the empty glass impatiently. Annette raised her eyebrows but refilled it without comment.

“Now,” Vivian said, resting her fingers lightly against the stem of the cup. “Perhaps you could tell me--”

“There was a slight complication.” Annette said.

“How slight?” Vivian's voice rose to a squeak.

“Another pastry?”

“No.”

“Slight.”

Vivian's heart pounded. The slim hand that held her wineglass shook. Its knuckles were white. Pomegranate juice dove from the rim of the glass. “Are you telling me that he's still alive? Is that it? That bastard is still breathing! I paid you fifty thousand dollars, you promised me he would--”

“I assure you, Robert is quite dead, Vivian.”

Vivian calmed immediately. She chugged the juice and held out her glass for more. Her curiosity flared up. “Then what was the complication?” She asked.

“Robert is dead, but I did not kill him.” Annette lit a long cigarette and inhaled deeply to give this information time to sink in.

“You... didn't...”

“Quite correct.”

“Then how...?”

“Cigarette?” Annette asked. She held out thin silver box of white sticks. Vivian took one. Annette flicked a match into life with one of her peeling, blue fingernails and touched the orange flame to Vivian's cigarette before shaking it out.

Vivian stared down at the glowing stick. She didn't smoke. She didn't want the cigarette. It was stupid of her to take it. A curl of smoke wafted toward her nose and she vainly tried to suppress a cough.

At least he's dead. It doesn't matter how it came about. I may even be able to get a refund. Vivian thought. She smiled, then coughed, then frowned. Robert. That bastard. He could of at least broken up with me before he screwed her. My best friend! Fuck, he got exactly what he deserved. Even if I can't get a refund, it was worth every cent. I couldn't go through life knowing that he had won.

“If you didn't kill him, how did he die?” Vivian asked.

“Ah,” Annette smiled. “That's a very interesting question requiring a long and detailed explaination. Shall I have my cook fix us something more substantial to eat?” Without waiting for Vivian's reply, she rang a silver bell and summoned her cook. A moment later a woman crept into the room, a tiny thing with black hair and narrow eyes who wore a uniform bordered in pink trim. Annette told her to fix them garlic bread followed by some long and complicated Italian dish.

When they were alone once more, Annette leaned back on the blue couch and blew a stream of smoke from between her lips as she stared up at the elegantly curved roof.

Vivian waited expectantly. The ashes from her cigarette fell unnoticed onto her jeans.

“People in my profession,” Annette began, “Become well acquainted with death. We live, so to speak, at the edges. We serve the living and feed the graveyards. When you spend enough time serving people this way, serving graveyards this way, betraying both the living and the dead, you become part of the darkness that shrouds death. And you see things. You see things that people who are not part of death never see. Reality, it's just a word. After you've been fed to the graveyard, it has no more meaning, can define and deny nothing.” Annette paused. “Your glass is empty, let me refill it for you my dear.”

Vivian held out her glass and watched as Annette's blue claws wrapped around the bottle of pink liquid. She watched the stream of juice glitter down into her glass like blood pouring from an open wound.

Annette set the bottle down and crushed the stub of her cigarette into a small, silver tray before she continued. “The complication happened last night.” She paused again, crossed her legs, folded her hands over her knee, looked up at the roof or the brim of her sweeping hat Vivian could not tell which. “I was in an alleyway behind the apartment building that Robert lives in, divining a way in which to enter his second story flat without detection.

“The moon was nothing more than a sliver, a curl of pearl, and so it offered me little useful light. However, it cast enough illumination to reflect off his dark window and so it was that I realized the glass was parted, the shutters splayed. It seemed at the time that my job would be finished within the hour, my paycheck earned, my chore complete, with a simple climb to his waiting sill. However, it soon became clear that I was not the first to enter his apartment through that window.”

Vivian yelped, the cigarette had burned on unnoticed until the fire has met her fingertips. She tossed it into the ashtray. The light that trickled into the room was a darker shade now, more of a crimson than a yellow. The curtains took on a darker appearance as well, and hung limp against the wall, collecting shadows.

Vivian laughed nervously. “Sorry, please, do go on.”

“By the time I reached his window, Robert was already dead, had in fact, been dead for quite some time. His killer stood by his body. Robert introduced him to me as Mr. Night.”

Silence.

“I think I have misunderstood you. What trick are you trying to pull? I thought you said... you assured me that Robert was dead! The dead cannot introduce their murderer! He's gone, not breathing, dead! Isn't that what you said? I paid you fifty thousand --” Vivian shot to her feet in anger.

“I told you that Robert was dead. And he is. But I never said that he was not breathing.”

Vivian sank slowly back into her seat. “I don't...”

The cook came into the room at that moment. She bore a stack of garlic bread on a silver platter. The cook set it down next to the bottle of pomegranate juice. Annette thanked her and she left.

“Garlic bread?” Annette offered.

Vivian stared at her.

Annette sighed. “Robert knew you had hired me to kill him. He promised not to harm me as long as I helped him to... repay you for trying to... feed him to the graveyards prematurely, so to speak. There are few things in this world which frighten me. Robert and Mr. Night are two of them. Naturally, I was quite amiable to his request and promised to aid him in any way I could. Oh, don't look at me that way my dear, you would have done the same thing in my position.”

Vivian's mouth hung open slightly. Her mind was fogged. She couldn't think couldn't comprehend the sudden turn of events. That bastard. She thought. She couldn't even manage to dredge up horror or shock. Annette was talking about how people like Mr. Night and Robert needed time each evening to hunt and refresh themselves and how inconvenient it would be for them to have to spend hours searching for Vivian. Vivian reached out and poured pomegranate juice into her glass. As she drank, she imagined how, to an outside observer, it could almost look as if she was drinking blood.

Drinking blood.

Suddenly, Vivian snatched a piece of garlic bread from the plate and stuffed it into her mouth.

“So you see,” Annette continued, “Robert thought it would be much easier for everyone involved if I were to invite you to my house for the day and keep you here until sunset, so he would know where to find you. He's deathly afraid of sunlight, you see. I was quite agreeable to the idea.” Annette glanced at the window, where the curtains hung like blood stained rags. “In fact, he should be along any moment now.”

Vivian's body shook. She crammed the garlic bread into her mouth with trembling fingers.

“So, that, my dear, was the complication.” Annette finished. Somewhere in the house, a door bell rang, a long, mournful sound. She stood. “I'll just go see who that could be. Please, don't move.”

As Vivian heard Annette's steps fade away, she washed down the last of the garlic bread with the pink blood of a pomegranate.

“I hope he'll let me give him a goodbye kiss.” She muttered, as the final rays of sunlight died away.