“So, only green means go.”
Baby smiled and nodded. “Exactly.”
Mel considered, then said, “But I’m still a cop, so if I see yellow, I know I’ve got some kind of bad person, right?”
“I hadn’t thought of that, but I guess that’s true. I’d be cautious of that. If you see bright yellow, then that’s someone else’s dinner already. Don’t take food from them.”
“Yuck!” Mel made a face, leaned closer, and lowered her voice. “You mean I ate that guy?”
With a shrug, Baby said, “Not sure, but that’s what we say. There are almost as many theories about that as there are of us. Everyone has a theory about what we are and what we do and all the rest.”
“What do you think we are?” She waved her hand to encompass the whole confusing mess, then repeated Baby’s words. “And all the rest.”
“I don’t make any claim about knowing the truth, but there are some theories that I think absolutely can’t be true. Some think we’re angels, doing God’s work, but that doesn't make sense. Why would angels be born to be molested or raped or captured by serial killers? Some think we’re demons or devils, but that makes even less sense to me. If there is a devil, why would it want to remove the bad people of the world?”
Mel considered, then said, “It would be the opposite. A devil would want as much torment here as possible.”
“I know, right?” Baby said, hands outstretched and an expression that spoke to the gullibility of belief. “Anyway, I sort of like a different version. It’s about as close as you can get to a common belief in our world. I don’t say it’s right, but it feels more correct than not.”
“Don’t leave me hanging here.”
“A lot of us call our kind Dark Valkyries.”
The woman with the box came to mind. “Valk Enterprises? The shipping company?”
Baby winked. “That’s the one. Shipping is just one facet.”
“But aren’t Valkyries some kind of Viking things that choose the most heroic of heroes to bring to their version of heaven?”
“Hence the dark part of the name.”
“Ah, I see. So dark takes the especially heinous to Viking hell. We’re Vikings?”
“Like I said, I don’t say the exact particulars are correct, only the general idea. Also, I think our kind were around long before the Vikings.”
“Do we send them to hell?”
“Who knows? Maybe they’re just weird food and we shit them out.”
“Gross.” Mel left that line of questioning alone, then asked about something that had been bothering her off and on since the moment she sucked down green fire. “Baby, why did it take you so long to learn how to do that thing I just did?”
“Bad luck. There aren’t many like me, and by that I mean ones who go white-light so young. Because the people who target us tend to keep us hidden, it’s hard for our kind to find them and tell them what to do. I had to discover it on my own and it took a half-century to hear my song.”
“But in a way, you were halfway doing it, but without music, right?”
“Yes. I wasn’t curing those men. Even without music, I was draining some of the life out of them. Enough to make them tame and docile for a while till it grew back. I just didn’t know it.”
“And that was enough of their life force to keep you young? What about the doctor and the person at the park?”
“That trick takes a lot of practice to do right. But if you can get to that point, it’s the safest way. It looks natural and no one goes missing. That woman at the park was thinking green intentions, and she was a low green, so when I touched her I had the music in my head and I sort of snatched her life. Enough to make her non-green forever, or maybe kill her. Like I said, it takes time and practice.”
Mel considered her pile of papers. Disappearances would be far too noticeable for most of them. Eventually, she would get caught for disappearing them. Murder trials without a body were tough, but with enough bodies disappearing, a conviction would happen. Finding some way to do it that looked like a natural death would be ideal. “How fast can I learn how to do that?”
Instead of answering, Baby nodded toward the waitress bringing plates. It smelled divine. Luckily for her, Mel could still eat eggs. She couldn’t tolerate the smell of their shells in her fridge, but once they were on a plate, they tasted just like eggs. A double order of French toast made with almond milk, no butter. Grabbing the hot syrup left for her, she smothered the heaping piles of crusty toast.
Baby was less ravenous with a single order, but she still made impatient hand movements as she waited for Mel to get done with the syrup. “Don’t hog it all.”
Mel giggled a little, almost delirious with a need to eat. “I could drink this stuff, I think.”
“Side effect,” Baby responded, then took the half-empty bottle right out of Mel’s hand. “But you can still get fat, so watch out.”
Mel watched Baby carefully pour, doing it with precision like she did everything. Exactly the same amount of syrup on each stack. It was strange to see her like this. She looked about fifteen. Her face was longer and more adult shaped, the last lingering traces of those cherubic cheeks transformed into high cheekbones and a sharp jawline. She was pretty, but it was very weird to see her like this. That reminded Mel of her own youthful condition.
“How did you get older so fast? And how do I get rid of
