Crime Scene

Humans process sexual response in a number of areas of the brain. Each individual brain slug connects to its host's brain in a unique way. As a result, some brain slug hosts experience a heightened sexual response compared to others. The "brain slug slut" is a reality, although only a minority of hosts exhibit this neurological response and accompanying behavior.
—Slug Sutra, Chapter 1

The first sound that Mel heard Jordan make was a scream of primal pain.

Mel had arrived home just as Jordan was heading into the shower. He was tired, with that slightly wired energy that came from being awake so long, the body decided sleep just wasn't happening, so it might as well keep moving. He had stopped at the market on the way home, having invested in a bunch of bananas for breakfast and more hot dogs for the ramen. Jordan emerged, dry and naked, and glanced at him before she went to the chest of drawers and began to dress.

He didn't watch her. Mel knew he could. She was changing right in front of him, almost as if inviting him to watch. If he did, however, Mel knew he'd get another hard-on. Something to deal with and not touch, not until Jordan came home in something like nine hours. Because...

Because masturbation is less exciting than watching her swallow, Mel admitted to himself. Or the thought of her sucki—

The scream had interrupted his thoughts. Jordan, only half-dressed in pants and a bra, raced for the apartment door and threw it open. The sound she made was an inhuman, constant keening. She threw herself against the door across the hall, and the door shuddered against the impact. Mel stood frozen for half a heartbeat as she clawed at the door, nails scrabbling.

Then he heard it. An answering wail. Softer. From the other side of the door.

Soong.

Mel grabbed Jordan's shoulders and pulled her away. He had seen kids break down doors at the orphanage. It wasn't hard if you knew what you were doing. The doors themselves were generally cheap wood or foam core. The locks were metal. Put enough pressure on the material around the lock—

His foot busted through the door on the third kick, and when he tore it back, the whole door swung inward. Mel pushed through, not wanting Jordan to be in danger if—

Soong was on the floor, topless, screaming. Antonio was on top of her. The blade of one of those chef's knives at the base of where her brain slug met the skin of her neck. Blood, human and brain slug, oozed down her neck.

Mel was not an action hero. Even as he moved forward, in big steps, he could feel something wrong in his leg. When his foot came up, aimed at Antonio's head, the knife came up to block. Chef's knife, carbon steel, sharp as anything, went through the shoe and the foot underneath.

It should have hurt. It probably did hurt, but Mel's adrenal glands had dumped their full load into his body, and he couldn't feel it.

"You asshole! You'll kill her!" Mel shouted as he collapsed down onto one knee. He didn't aim a punch at Antonio's head. He grabbed the other man's face and **** his thumb into his right eye. That broke the moment of stillness. Antonio fell back off of Soong. Got to his feet, one hand over his eye. Jordan was in 502 now, kneeling by Soong. Their screams were eerily synchronized now, like two cop cars side by side, rising and falling in a harmony that was profoundly alien to any human vocalization.

Mel stood up and hobbled in between them and Antonio, the knife still in his foot.

He could see Antonio clearly now. In his chef's whites. Maybe about to go out for the day. Yet there were dark bags under his one good eye, as though he hadn't slept; stubble on his face, slicked-back hair in disarray. Something like hurt in his expression, like a dog that doesn't know why it has been kicked.

"I wasn't...I just wanted...a taste," Antonio said. Then he stared down at where the two brain slug hosts met, and his face twisted in an expression of such hate and disgust as Mel had never seen. "Cunt. She was supposed to be—why couldn't she just—"

Antonio inched toward the broken door. Then he was gone. Just turned and left, down the hall at a run.

Mel sagged against the couch. He was standing in a red puddle. Jordan had Soong in her arms and carried the other woman across the hall.

There was a wall-mounted phone in each apartment. A quaint holdover from a time before everyone (except Mel, who couldn't afford it) had a smartphone. Mel limped back across the hall and started making calls. 9-1-1 first. The long exhaustion hung heavily on him now, a bone-deep ache that demanded sleep. His foot was a spike of pain that wouldn't cease. Eventually, a cop appeared. Then more cops, and the building's superintendent.

The cops did not like Mel. The dislike was instant and mutual. Their questions were probing, critical. Mel knew he should shut up. He had no lawyer, and they were cops. Worse, he was the only one who could speak. Jordan and Soong had gone silent. Antonio was gone. They had one injured brain slug host, Mel, admitting he'd busted into his neighbor's apartment, and with a wound that looked a lot like self-defense. The street cops muttered "slug fucker" when they looked at him.

Then an older woman arrived, tall and broad-shouldered, in a business suit with wrap-around shades, and some sort of turban. The effect should have been ridiculous, but somehow she carried herself imperiously. A badge hung on a lanyard about her neck. At the sight of the badge, the uniformed cops shut up. She glanced at Mel, then headed straight to Jordan's room. Mel glanced in. Soong was still topless, chest down on the bed. Jordan sat on the edge of the bed, clasping Soong's palm. The older woman held up her right hand, palm up. Jordan placed her palm on top.

A long minute passed. Mel had no idea what was going on. The woman's neck was bare, no sign of a brain slug. Was it further down her back? He'd read they could attach anywhere along the spine. He wondered if he was about to be arrested.

An emergency medical technician, a blonde woman with kind eyes and Gaelic knot tattoos across her cheeks, pulled his shoe off. Mel looked toward her, attention shifting to a sock soaked with blood. But the cut wasn't as bad as all that. He watched as she sprayed something foamy that burned like hell into the wound, then dressed it smartly with what looked like a big bandaid and a roll of gauze, topped with tape.

The EMT spent more time in Jordan's room. She shut the door behind her. When she emerged, she looked like she would throw up, but didn't. The turbaned woman with a badge emerged. She stared at him for a long moment and then said.

"Mr. Arkwright. We've taken your statement. Your roommate and the victim confirm your version of events. Thank you for your prompt action," she said. The words were clipped, a touch of an accent that Mel didn't know. He blinked as she turned and said a few things. The EMT said something about urgent care and stitches, then left too.

The cops closed up. No more hard questions. Mel waited until they left. The door to Jordan's room had closed again. He rubbed his eyes, gave a deep sigh, and picked up the phone again. The second call was to Ha-Yoon at the Cosmic Fill-Up. Mel explained, as well as he could, what had happened.

"Fucking Christ shit," the manager said after a lengthy pause. Then: "I need you to come in."

Mel looked at his foot. It was wrapped in gauze and tape, the toes cold. He was down a sock and didn't have many to start with. Lucky the cops hadn't taken his shoe as evidence.

"Boss, I just got stabbed in the foot," he said.

"Flesh wound," Ha-Yoon dismissed. "I'll give you some aspirin when you get here. But from what you say, neither Jordan nor Soong can come in, and I need somebody to cover their shift. So haul ass, you're already late."

Mel closed his eyes. He did need this job. So did Jordan, and Soong. Now, maybe more than ever. If Antonio came back...

There was police tape across the broken door to 502. Crime scene, do not pass.

He took out another pair of socks and put both of them over his wounded foot before he slipped it back into the shoe. There was still a hole in the top where the blade had gone through. Then Mel knocked on the door to Jordan's room. She didn't open it. He didn't blame her.

"I called Ha-Yoon. She wants me to go in. To cover your shift," he said, loudly enough to be heard through the door. "When I leave, lock, chain, and bolt the door behind me. Okay?"

The door opened a crack. Just enough for Jordan to give a thumb's up. Then the hand withdrew, and the door closed again.

Mel limped out the door, back into the waking day. Somewhere out there was Antonio. What had driven him to do what he did to Soong, Mel couldn't entirely guess. Yet maybe he did. There had been a desperation there, a loneliness, an entitlement. Antonio had wanted something from Soong that she had not given him. Would Mel be the same way if Jordan suddenly decided to never swallow for him again? If she was just a perpetual cocktease, and left him to fend for himself?

"No," Mel said aloud as he shuffled along, wincing at every step. "I'm not that kind of asshole."

A short, bald man with a brain slug on his neck stared at Mel as he walked past. An Asian woman, her own slug larger, with prominent spots, came up and held his hand for a moment. Mel noted the interaction, thought of Jordan and Soong. Except these two didn't keep holding hands. They swiftly parted, each in opposite directions, moving with purpose.

Mel had no idea what that was about.