34. A Lark (Patreon)

A phone rang, a classical music ringtone echoing in the confines of the stairwell. Levi blinked, confused, and fumbled around him. “Dumb… phone, where…”

His hand touched a cold, leathery hand, and he snapped back to reality, shoving himself to all fours. “Comfy stairs…no! Right! I took care of that Stoneheart asshole who took out a bounty on me, and—”

He looked around him. His brows furrowed. “That’s not my phone. Who’s calling my dead friend?”

Crawling up the stairs, he patted through Stoneheart’s pockets until he found the phone, both hands restored to their usual wholeness. He swiped, answering the call, and gave a noncommittal grunt.

“It’s too early. I told you, it’s too early. You still want to call ‘em all back?”

Levi grunted again.

“I know she was the love of your life ‘n shit, but this stuff takes time, man. You’re just going to waste everyone’s time. I’m telling you right now, no one’s going to have any leads yet, let alone success.”

Another grunt.

The voice on the other hand cursed, then sighed. “Fine. Fine. I’ll call ‘em in. Dammit, man. You know I have to pay Maury double for this stuff nowadays, right? She’s too damn old… ugh.”

“Double?” Levi asked, shocked.

“What?”

Levi cleared his throat. He grunted.

“Right. Then, same place as last time, three hours. Don’t expect anything.”

The line went dead. Levi lowered the phone from his ear, then grinned. He chuckled, the chuckle building to an outright laugh, throwing his head back.

Abruptly, he stopped. He looked down at the body on the stairs, then the front door, then the severed hand, lying on the floor. Bending, he snatched that up, then grabbed Stoneheart by the armpits and dragged him up the stairs. Blood streaks traced after him, as if Stoneheart was a giant bloody paintbrush. Levi cursed under his breath, glancing back over his shoulder the whole way.

Up at the top of the stairs, he looked over Stoneheart’s face, then patted his own. He pinched his chin, feeling his cheekbones and browline, leaning his head to line it up with Stoneheart’s. “Hmm…”

Abandoning Stoneheart’s body for a moment, he hurried to the bathroom. Two sinks greeted him. One, stained in streaks and speckled with shaved hair, a razor and a rag lying beside it, next to a single bottle of hair gel. The other was piled with more makeup than he’d seen before in his life. Bottles of foundation cluttered the sink. Pallets of blush and eye shadow stacked up on the vanity, spilling over toward the ‘his’ sink of the his and hers sinks.

Levi’s eyes glittered. “Jackpot.”

--

A phone vibrated. Levi looked up, startled, then grabbed his phone and put it on speakerphone. “Maury! What’s up?”

“You said you needed me. Do you need me, or not?”

“Oh, I do, I do, I’m just…” Levi looked at the mirror, where a version of himself stared back at him, layered in heavy makeup, then to the left, where Stoneheart’s body sat propped up on the toilet so his face reflected in the mirror. On his phone, a Costume Makeup for First Timers! Become Any Character! video tutorial played, paused at an image of a girl putting eyelashes on.

Levi cleared his throat. “I’m using it for something.”

Dead silence. At last, Maury took a deep breath.

“No no no, not—I’m realizing, I realized, that uh, that sounded like—not that, not that,” Levi said, waving his hands at the phone. He glanced at the tutorial, then back at Stoneheart. “I’m done. You can have him. You ready?”

“Been ready. Hurry it up. And don’t tell me what you were using it for.”

“Maury, I swear—”

Maury hung up.

Levi clicked his tongue and shook his head. He turned around to Stoneheart’s body and quickly went through its pockets, stealing the keys and wallet. He laid the body down flat on the ground, then dialed Maury again. “Ready. Go.”

“Thank goodness. I’m turning ‘em into skill points. No skills for you.”

“His skills are rad, but fair.”

“Do you really want them?”

Levi paused. “I mean…”

“Skill points. I don’t have the time for skills, and you know they won’t survive a death. If you don’t have a clear vision of what you’re going to do with his skills the second you get them, it’s points for you.”

“Yeah, fair.”

“Good luck.”

The call ended. Levi set his phone face-down on Stoneheart’s chest. Blue light glowed against the man’s rumpled suit, and his body vanished.

Abruptly, Stoneheart’s phone rang.

Levi checked the number, then picked it up. “Hello, Levi’s delivery service, how can I help you?”

Maury sighed. “Levi, he’s a client.”

“He put a price on my head!”

There was a pause. “And you couldn’t have handed it over?”

Lifting a brush to his face, Levi added a little more depth to his eyebags. “I mean, yeah, but it goes against my principles.”

Voice dry, she asked, “What principles?”

He lowered the brush, turning his face to get a better look at it. “The principles of ‘I don’t like him, he’s an asshole.’”

“Levi.”

“I’ve got his cards. I’ll have Roxy or someone run ‘em,” Levi said, distracted. He added one more dash of eyeliner, then cursed under his breath and scrambled for the other bottles.

“Won’t be as much as if he paid up,” Maury grumbled.

“Look, alright. He wasn’t a nice guy. And I’m going to clean up for free. And he was after my head, and now he isn’t. Wins all around.” Levi dabbed a little bit more foundation on his face, then stepped back, throwing his hands out to the mirror. He looked himself up and down. “Yeah?”

“Huh?”

He frowned. “I look like shit. At a distance, I might pass muster…eh. I’ll make it work.”

“Do I want to know?”

“Nah.”

“Right. Well. I’ll make him into skill points for you. And don’t kill my clients, next time. Even if they’re assholes.”

“No promises.” With a flourish, Levi hung up. He looked at himself in the mirror one last time, then shook his finger at himself determinedly. “Glasses. A facemask. And a suit. I’ll make this work.”