Chapter 15: Home Is Where The Heart Is
Starlight Over Detrot Chapter 15 : Home Is Where The Heart Is
When you get down to it, mental stability is difficult to maintain in Equestria.
Ponies stymied in an apparently straightforward ambition can go from meek, unassuming creatures to frothing lunatics in the course of a few seconds. Imagined slights have induced ponies into attempting to befriend buckets of produce. Some of Princess Celestia’s most trusted advisors have been known to instigate citywide brawls at the apparently unbearable thought of missing deadlines. And this is to say nothing of incidents caused by bizarre ponies who just seem to operate on different mental planes. (See H.P. Hoofcraft’s account of “The Horror in Pink,” L.R. 3)
Equestria’s aggressively hostile ecosystem is a major stress factor, of course, but the greater contributor is the incredible power of emotional magic. Love can and has turned aside armies, but anyone who’s ever been in a relationship gone sour knows just as well that love can make you crazy. Not to mention jealousy, terror, pride, or any other form of intense emotion that might send a pony over the deep end.
Equestria roils with seething tides of emotion, creating a bizarre and shifting psychic atmosphere not entirely incomparable to weather patterns, albeit less predictable. It has been theorized that this is why artifacts such as the Elements of Harmony and the Crystal Heart are so essential; they provide stability to a mental weatherscape that would otherwise regularly be struck by the emotional equivalent of torrential hurricanes. The Princesses themselves assist in providing this anchor; Princess Luna has been known to appear in dreams to solve intense emotional issues, while Celestia is a pillar of well-established calm and perseverance.
But the farther one gets from Canterlot, the more often one encounters zones of inherent instability that are simply stronger than most. In essence, there are places where ‘Crazy’ becomes a matter of geography rather than psychology.
-The Scholar
I never considered it a possibility that I would land in the planned super-suburbs of Detrot. I could never see myself settling down to be entombed within socially acceptable desperations, hidden from neighbors by fences and fertilized lawns.
Granted, I know plenty of ponies dream of owning a home in some beautiful neighborhood with manicured hedges, but I think most of them are out of their minds; those places are vastly different from the organic, pumping hearts of the city like the Heights or the Skids. They are where, I've always believed, the darkest evil breeds.
See, it requires a special breed of pony to drive past the seedy realities of a downtown byway into those little bubbles of fantasy perfection, smiling to themselves each day at having 'escaped' those realities. It takes a pony who can lie to themselves, their partners, their children, and everyone around them. They must be able to maintain one vast illusion within their own minds, lest they find themselves ejected from the fantasy and, most likely, from the neighborhood.
That illusion and that lie can be summed up in three simple words: I am safe.
They tell themselves that one big lie so all the little ones become easier, and that makes those ponies dangerous.
I could never tell myself the lies loudly enough to believe I was genuinely secure in such an environment, not after what I've seen of those ponies while working in Equicide. Give me Beam heads, street gangs and broken bottles on the asphalt over the carefully maintained facades of homeowners associations, soccer practices, and interior design magazines on the coffee table. The most brutal acts of vicious inequinity come out of those purposefully identical, clean, and willfully dull households.
.
****
We followed the general direction of the ladybugs' arrow, skirting traffic as we drove deeper and deeper into one of Detrot’s farthest suburban districts. The insects swung faster and faster the closer we got to our destination, adjusting themselves as necessary to keep us on course.
The housing divisions we passed through were the sort of nice, upscale places that’d been popular with managers and top end workers during the boom years, but whose designers preferred uniformity over following the trends and fashions of the time. It gave the whole area a feeling of being cut from a form and slapped on a flattened landscape by some enormous and terribly uncreative doll-house enthusiast.
In decay, most of those who could no longer afford the expensive mortgages had moved out, leaving the developments in a sort of limbo. Of course, plenty of families remained; they huddled close together for warmth in their three story town-homes and bungalows amidst a ghost town growing around them as their neighbors succumbed or moved on to greener pastures.
We would pass through a beautiful scene with children playing on crisp, green lawns and grandmothers sipping tea on whitewashed porches, then take a turn and see one ‘dream house’ after another with boards over their windows and broken advertisements from once-optimistic realtors hoping to offload the places at a fraction of what they’d once have gotten. The middle-class suburbs have always struck me as a sad place. Unlike the Heights, these had no wise benefactor propping them up through the dark years.
They were like an old dog, coughing and struggling, peering into one alleyway after another in search of a quiet place to die.
We took one last left, and our ladybugs hummed to let us know we were getting close.
****
Something was distinctly different and very wrong about this part of the suburbs, wronger than usual, but it took a moment for my slightly addled brain to lay hoof on what it was.
The front yards. The yards were all dead.
Even the most deserted of the blocks in the area, there had been at least a few dozen holdouts managing to create something resembling community by keeping their grass well fed and tended. On unsold lots, there were often wild, prarielike carpets of grass and weeds. But there wasn't a single blade of green on this solitary road. Every square inch of sod was brown and empty, like a parasprite swarm had swept through in the middle of the night and clear-cut everything.
“Now that’s not spooky at all,” Taxi whispered sardonically, as she spun the wheel and took us down the deathly still avenue.
“No kidding. Feelings?” I asked, automatically checking my gun and giving the various straps little tugs to make sure they were all working. Nothing worse than finding yourself in the middle of a gunfight only to discover your reload strap is giving you a wedgie.
“No helpful ones. It’s just empty. Really empty. Did you notice there’s no realtor signs?” She pointed towards the empty spot beside all the mailboxes, indicating the absence of some representative signpost advertising optimism and a hope for a better future if you just moved in.
“What’s the name of this road?” Swift wanted to know.
I stuck my head out the window, looking back the way we’d come. The white words on the little green sign were smudged with dirt and a bit hard to make out, but not impossble.
“It’s Cosmos Bloom Road,” I replied, my jaw tightening.
“That’s too much coincidence for me for one day.” Taxi let the engine lose revs, slowing us considerably.
“Sir, you think this is King Cosmo’s home?” Swift stuck her wing out the window, testing the air currents in case she needed to take off quickly.
“It’s a safe assumption. He wouldn’t be the first mob lord to get sentimental or to change his name.” I glanced over the driveways and doors, looking for recent movement. There was none. “I think we’re pretty safe here. Cosmo’s security system is damn near perfect. Nopony looks for a Jeweler safehouse in the middle of the suburbs, so I doubt he's bothered to post guards. Drive on.”
****
I didn't need the helpful little burp noise from our insect friends to point out our final destination. It shone like a beacon of green amidst the forlorn, samey pillars to good taste amongst the middle classes. The structures on either side were like all their neighbors; action playsets still in the box; the building between them was the real deal.
It was a house of the same age at the rest, the pre-market collapse styling unmistakable. Unlike its companions, the front yard wasn’t a melange of gravel and untouched sod. This house almost burst with grassy life, cropped to a precise length by the hooves of some extremely fussy or well paid gardener. It was a showcase, if there ever were one, for fine living and fashionable excess.
Every shingle on the roof was perfect, the siding gleamed, and every window-sill looked recently painted and remodeled. There wasn’t a speck of dirt nor even the stain of gasoline on the driveway. It was two stories of condensed shtick made with a salepony’s smile and wrapped in a big red bow made of nothing but hopes and dreams.
The mailbox said, in soft pink letters, ‘The Blooms.’
“You think it might be his real name? Cosmo Bloom?” Taxi asked, letting the engine idle at the far side of the road as we inspected the house. “I wonder if he just never used his family name or if he abandoned it when he left home. Granted, Bloom isn’t an especially ‘mafia’ name...”
“You remember. Back then, the developers used to name things like streets after themselves or their families,” I pointed out. “I’m thinking we’re there. His father built this neighborhood or had some hoof in it.”
“Are we going in now, sir?” Swift was already checking her extra ammo clips and feeling each of the straps on her tactical vest.
“I think our options are limited,” I replied, cocking my gun and checking the chamber then making sure the safety was on. “Cosmo knows Svelte is flipped or, at least, suspects. If he’s keeping the recordings or his ledgers here, he’ll be coming for them at first opportunity. If he’s not, there’s something he values enough to hide.”
“Can we call the Vivarium for backup?” Taxi opened her door, but didn’t get out.
“Let’s not pull that card just yet.” I shook my head, scooting to the edge of the seat and stepping out onto the warm tarmac. We were far enough from the industrial park that the sunshine was downright beautiful. I felt more than a little exposed. “I’d rather our connections to them not be revealed quite yet if we get caught. We need that as an option. Ladybugs, you listening?”
Our private swarm wiggled in the air, zipping into the shape of an ear that turned slightly towards me.
“Good. You have representatives down near the Vivarium?”
The ear did a little affirmative hop.
“Alright, go find a red earth pony with a wine cork and bottle for a cutie-mark and who acts like he shits glitter.” Turning into the shape of a pen and paper, the bugs pantomimed scribbling down notes. “Show him what we’ve been doing and tell him to stand by. We might need Stilettos to swoop in and pull us out, but unless something really ugly goes down in here I want him to wait. Meanwhile, go scout the street. Make sure we’re not being watched and signal me if we are.”
Three ladybugs split off from the group and landed in our manes while the rest buzzed out of the cab’s window, blasting off in all directions to see what they might see. Swift made to swat hers away but I grabbed her hoof before she could. She set it down.
“Sorry, sir. I had fleas once when I was a kid and I hate bugs in my fur.”
“So long as you don’t start feeling the urge to cover yourself in pesticides I think it’s fine. Speaking of that, any of those nasty, crack-someone’s-sternum-with-your-face feelings?” I turned so she could check my rear weapons straps and she peeled back my coat, tugging the one on my left thigh a little tighter.
Her eyes rolled up and to one side and she stuck her tongue out, taking a quick internal inventory. “Erm...No, sir. Nothing.” Swift chewed on her bit. Something was bothering her.
“What is it, kid?” I asked, examining the second story windows and imagining Cosmo watching us from them. It would have lead to one heck of an awkward conversation busting into this place only to discover he’d somehow beaten us there.
“Sir, do you mind if I ask something?”
“Is now the time?”
“Well, it’s about the ladybugs.” She went to scratch her mane, only stopping at the last second as she remembered why that was a bad idea. “I just wanted to know why don’t we just tell them where to go? That sounds so much easier.”
“Ahhh, the million bit question. You know what an autonomy contract is?” I patted the spot on my head where I could feel the ladybug shifting about. It gave a quiet buzz to let me know it was there.
“No... I mean, I’ve heard of them but only in PACT training.”
“Short version? The autonomy contract is a list of rules.” I touched one toe to the bottom off my hoof, mimicking the act of going down a grocery list. “Long version? It’s an individualized user’s manual for each and every sentient non-natural being that exists with the blessing of pony society. Ladybugs have got their own and it says, very specifically, that they’re not allowed to put themselves into surveillance positions, you have to know what you want to watch before you use them, and they can’t breed unless one of their number dies. Keeps anypony from making a city-wide spy network.”
“So why did you tell them to go look around the neighborhood?” She set Masamane’s trigger down and wiped a little saliva off of it then took it back in her mouth.
“They can signal danger. Any threats to life or limb, they’re allowed to give us a heads up.”
“Oh...” Swift stretched her wings, processing this information. “Seems like an awfully complicated way of doing things, if you don’t mind me saying, sir.”
“You’ve no idea. There are some Essies—” Swift’s left iris gave a visible jump and she blew a whistling breath between her teeth. “—Sorry, kid. There are some constructs who’ve got entire novellas worth of required reading just so you don’t end up turned into bubblegum.”
“Speaking of ‘dangerous situations,’ Hardy, if you keep dragging me into things like that little scene at the Monte Cheval, I’m going to have to get something with a little more kick than my rear hooves, if you know what I mean,” Taxi put in, throwing her shoulders back, working the kinks out. “Kicks are wonderful but a gun—”
“No!” I almost shouted then lowered my voice lest there be prying ears on the street.
Her face immediately fell. “A small one! I picked one out of the Requisition catalog last night! I just want—”
“No!” I slapped my hoof against the side of the Night Trotter which didn’t so much as leave a scuff but Taxi still gave me her death stare. I ignored it; it was an order of magnitude less terrifying than the prospect of my driver being armed. “I know this has nothing to do with you being worried about getting shot. Under no circumstances are you going to get a gun. You drive the car. You do not fire the bullets. Any bullets need firing, I fire them.”
“Sir, wouldn’t it be nice to have somepony else—” Swift started, but I didn’t let her finish.
“Kid, you have no idea what you’re talking about. Just trust me. It would not be nice having bullets in my flank. Or your flank. Or innocent bystanders. Or the ceilings. Or anywhere but the bad guys!”
The rookie looked from me to Taxi then back again. “What do you mean, sir?”
“What I mean, is that with anything smaller than a rocket launcher, Taxi is the worst markspony who has ever lived.” I jabbed my hoof between the cab driver’s eyes and she gave me an exaggerated, sulky frown. “So no, we will not be getting her a gun. If she wants a vest, I keep an extra at my apartment.”
“I prefer my mobility.” She replied as a thin and altogether too clever smile started to form on her lips. “It was just a thought. Besides, I think you gave me an idea.”
“No ideas either!" I shouted, trying to stamp out that seed before it blossomed into my well-intentioned doom. "I remember what happened the last time somepony gave you a firearm.”
On cue, Swift rustled her wings and asked: “What did happen?”
“She shot me with it,” I groused, rubbing my left rear leg against my right.
“Are you ever going to let me forget about that?” Taxi lowered her head almost to the cement.
“If it’d been anything bigger than that practice BB-gun, I’d be a eunuch, so... No. Besides, you can already render a pony unconscious by coughing on them in the right spot. Now, enough about this. Let’s see what we’re up against.”
I shut the rear door of the cab and faced the house; Cosmo’s childhood home. It squatted there between its barren adjoiners, a cheerful manifestation of every lie and evil which lives in the heart of the equine middle classes, waiting for us to knock on the front door. My instincts let off little tickles of warning, but nothing more than they usually would going into a new situation with limited intel.
Backing off and waiting for the ladybugs to give us a complete accounting of the neighborhood was tempting, but who knew whether or not Cosmo could call things back from his lockbox? I wanted the diary back in my hooves as quickly as possible. That, perhaps more than the recordings, the ledgers, or whatever valuables might be inside was my real reason for not waiting. Despite not knowing its contents, I was somehow dead certain that leaving it in his possession any longer than absolutely necessary constituted dangerous stupidity.
“We’ll try this friendly-like first,” I told my two companions, then moved up the driveway, trying to make as little sound as possible on the stairs. Swift stacked up on other side of the portal with Taxi behind her.
The welcome mat actually said ‘welcome,’ so I decided to take its advice. The door latch turned easily and I gave it a light shove. It swung open on an oiled hinge that didn’t so much as squeak. I held my breath, waiting.
There were no alarms. No sirens. No bells whistling or tricked shotgun hooked up to the knob ready to blast unsuspecting ponies into tiny chunks of meat.
“You want to do the honors, kid?” I asked, holding my leg out in front of the door
Swift brightened. “Yes, sir!” Sticking her head around the door, she drew breath and shouted, “This is the Detrot Police Department. Anypony inside, make yourselves known!”
We waited, either for a hail of bullets or the familiar sound of scrambling hooves trying to mark a run for it, but there was nothing but a soft creak from somewhere near top of the staircase that could easily have been the wood settling.
My partner’s eartip swung up, down, then towards the end of the hall, straining for any sound. “Sir, I... think it’s safe to enter.” She sounded almost disappointed.
I stepped into the small foyer, gun bit at the ready but not yet in my mouth. “In and fan out. Cover every room and watch your corners. I don’t want somepony to get out behind us. The ladybugs will tell us if somepony goes out the back or tries to fly. Then it’s up to you, kid.”
“Yes, sir!”
Taxi wiped her rear hooves on the welcome mat and followed us in. “I noticed a drainage ditch behind the house. If somepony goes out that way they’re going to have an awful time running through the mud.”
“I’d rather not get find myself suddenly exercising this morning, so lets secure the house as quickly as possible.“
The three of us broke off and moved down the hall, myself in the lead and Swift close behind with Taxi bringing up the rear. The first doorway proved to be a simple, classicist sitting room with a tasteful wood burning stove. All signs pointed to recent occupancy. A rocking chair in the corner had a groove worn into the carpet under both rails.
A picture of a smiling family hung over the stove; two nearly identical brown colts, a thickly built earth pony stallion, and a thin, extremely sweet faced unicorn mare. At first glance, the four of them might have been lifted from the pages of a magazine, but the picture had a story to tell to the pony looking for one.
The stallion in the back might have been big and powerful, but there was a desperation about his eyes as his leg hung around the mare’s neck. Her waifish features held the beginnings of an emotion, just the first breath of feeling which hasn’t had time yet to flower, but I could still see it in the set of her mouth and the cant of her chin: Contempt.
The images of the two colts down front had their own tales to tell. They were almost identical facially; there, the similarities ended. On the left, the boy had grown like an oak, strong and bullish. There was no mistaking him. It was King Cosmo, though a younger pony without the gleam of evil crawling around in his eyes. The leg he laid on his brother’s back was... tentative, careful, like he feared he might break him. Meanwhile, the other colt seemed barely there, a shade fading from the picture. His eyes were sunken and hollow, though he kept up a fiercely brave smile for the camera.
We moved on.
I kept waiting for my cutie-mark to tell me we were wandering into danger. but whatever evils might have sometimes been in residence seemed not to be around at that moment. While ‘safe’ might have been too strong, I wasn’t feeling especially threatened by anything I was seeing. The smell of the place reminded me of my grandparent’s house but there was still something ‘off’ about all of it. Still, shadows gathered in the corners of well lit rooms; hangers on to some great and long past atrocity. The house on Cosmos Bloom Road was not a ‘good’ place.
We passed a well-used little kitchen and an empty guest bedroom before coming to an open door with a set of steep wooden stairs leading up to the second floor.
“You hear that?” Taxi asked softly, her ears jutting straight forward up the stairs.
“Breathing,” I whispered back.
“Actually, it sounds like snoring,” Swift put in.
“She’s right,” my driver murmured.
“Snoring, then.” I put my hoof on the side of the bottom step, trying to apply weight slowly. “Top of the stairs? Two rooms, left or right. Sounds right-side to me.”
“That’s the echo,” Swift corrected, indicating the other opening. “It’s coming from left side, sir.”
I decided to take the kid’s call and crept up, testing each stair before putting my hoof down, wishing for once I owned a pair of those rubber horse-shoes. The log-sawing sound only grew with each step until I stood in front of the closed door with a noise like a lumberjack’s camp on the other side. Taxi swarmed up after me, making about as much racket as a mouse wearing socks while Swift simply leapt, giving her wings two half-beats and touching down beside me with a soft thump.
I covered my lips with my hoof then edged the door open nice and slow.
The room on the other side gave me that wriggle in the hindquarters I’d been waiting for. It positively reeked of close, long term habitation by at least one pony.
A flickering light from an old television set played across a bed littered with irregular shapes: Beer cans. Lots of beer cans. A veritable menagerie of beer cans. A few old clothes were strewn around the floor, adding dirty laundry to the scent of stale hops.
The only time I’d smelled that particular blend of despair and rotten beer was soon after Juniper died, before Taxi pulled me back from the brink.
That was a welcome thought. I shoved it aside and focused my attention on the bed’s occupant.
It took some time to make out details in the dim light but I thought it might be a stallion. It was hard to tell. His face was almost as wrecked by age as After Glow’s, though with none of the spry, feisty energy. Whereas she seemed merely inconvenienced by the years, the pony under the sheet had been ravaged by them. His pelt might have been just a convenient thing to hold his bones together. Its original colors were lost to a long, rough history, leaving him dingy bark color with a thin, sun-bleached mane.
If death had a face, it was the pony in that bed, and yet there was something about him that was familiar.
“I'm going to climb out on a limb here, but that's the pony from the picture downstairs, right?" I slipped nearer to the bed and saw a hearing aid on the nightstand. No wonder he hadn't heard us come in. "The stallion behind the kids?"
"It... could be?" Taxi gnawed on her upper lip, then her lower as she tried to match the heap of barely living flesh in the bed to the vibrant picture of health downstairs. "But if we're going with this being Cosmo's home, and that picture is his family, that means... this is his father. He's supposed to be in Tartarus Correctional, right?"
"That's the idea, yeah. Generally a prison stay implies staying in prison. Can we wake him up?" I gently bumped the bed but the only response was a rude snort and the stallion rolled onto his back, pulling the sheet higher. Something on the bed rattled softly.
"Oh come on, Hardy, lemme do it. You'll give him a heart attack." Taxi shoved me out of the way with her hip and took my place, giving Cosmo's father a light shake. When that didn't get any reaction, she picked up the hearing aid between her hooftips and stuck it into his ear. Leaning over, she whispered, in a voice I'd heard her use with kittens and puppies: "Good morning."
The stallion didn't move, but the snoring stopped, punctuated by the sounds of a weedwacker chewing up eggs. One rheumy eye worked it's way open, full of a small desert worth of sand. He glanced up at my cabbie's face and his withered muzzle opened on empty, pink gums into a weak grin.
"Y'see, Honey... angels come to take me back... angels," he mumbled, running his tongue over his cracked lips. His voice was surprisingly strong for coming out of a throat with so many wrinkles it was hard to tell where his neck started and his chin stopped.
"I'm not an angel, Mister Bloom." Taxi touched his cheek very tenderly. "I'm with the police."
"Ehhh..." His smile reminded me of Cosmo's just a little, but not cruel. Just sad. He didn't seem surprised to see us; if anything, he looked... relieved. "Might as well be angels, then. Means the same thing. I go back where I belong. Right to the pit."
"We're not here to take you anywhere, Mister Bloom," Taxi replied with a reassuring hoof on his foreleg. He glanced at it like it might have been made of gold, and I realized, however he'd escaped Tartarus, he'd traded one prison for another.
"Well then, what do you want? Nothin' in this world you can take that I didn't already take from myself." Bloom said, raising himself off his stained blanket as his arthritic joints let off a chorus of pops and crackles. His breath was something special; the mix of decay and day old beer I'd woken up to many a morning when work was getting the better of me.
"We're here on police business,” I said, stepping into Blooms vision behind my driver.
"Now I know I'm not dead. No angel ever looked like you, boy," he guffawed, throwing his rear legs over the side of the bed.
"Mister Bloom, sir, we're here about your son." Taxi was really laying on the charm for the old bugger.
"Jingle Jangle?" he asked, sweeping the glass with his dentures off the side-table and stuffing them into his mouth. His appearance wasn't much improved by the addition of pearly whites, largely because they were more like off-yellows. "What about him?"
"Cosmo. We're here about Cosmo," I clarified.
"Cosmo? Cosmo's dead, boy! Don't taunt an old pony so! It ain't right." His jaws clattered against one another as he pulled himself unsteadily to a standing position. His left eye was milky probably almost blind though his right was still sharp.
Taxi sucked on her tongue then said just loud enough for the hearing aid to pick up, "He's the one the picture downstairs. The big one standing in front of you."
"Jingle Jangle is his name," he answered then turned to the bed and began arranging something on the far side of it, as though from long habit. The television had some cooking show on, but the volume off; its light was enough for him to perform whatever his task was. "Sweet colt. So sweet. Loved his brother. His brother's name was Cosmo. You sure you're looking for the same pony and ain't got your wires crossed?"
My line of inquiry stalled, I did some quick arithmetic in my head.
Had Cosmo taken his brother's name after he died? Possible. If he had, was he trying to cover for his crimes? No, Cosmo didn't fear being caught. He was too careful. We'd gotten lucky to have come as far as we had. More likely he was paying homage.
"Yes, Jingle Jangle? Can we talk about him?" I prompted him. Out of my peripheral vision I saw Swift peering down the stairs, shifting weight back and forth on her rear hooves. I discreetly pointed at my eye then down the way we'd come. She nodded then turned and flew back downstairs to continue exploring the house.
"What's to talk about?" The old pony pulled open a tiny ice-chest beside the bedroom door, then expertly tore the top off of yet another bottle of beer, adding the top to a collection in one corner. "Has Jingle got himself mixed up with that bad crowd that helped get me out? He's a sweet boy. Helped get me home. Helped get my wife back where she should be."
The list of questions was growing every time the codger opened his mouth. The old pony obviously had no idea of his son's criminal activities. Telling him just how close to the tree the apple had fallen seemed like a recipe for sending the sad son of a bitch to his grave. He might have been a murderer, once, but my cutie-mark felt downright frigid at the thought of sending him back to Tartarus, and the questions weren't going to answer themselves. I decided to take executive action.
"You know, I have a few spare minutes if you don't mind sharing a beer?" I jostled the icebox with my hip, making bottles clank against one another. "I'd love to talk if you don't mind. Maybe you could tell me a little about the boys?"
I figured that it'd been awhile since Mister Bloom had somepony to drink with. I was correct; he happily ripped the top off another beer and found me a clean straw from a package on the desk.
"Hardy, do we have time for this?" Taxi muttered, too low for the hearing aid to pick up.
I spoke back from the corner of my mouth. "We're making time. Ladybugs will let us know if there's an issue outside."
Bloom returned and settled himself on the edge of the bed, passing me the beer. “Now ain’t this friendly? Heh. Couldn’t used to say ‘ain’t’ when I was selling houses. The higher ups said it sounded ‘simple.' Honey didn’t like it neither. Thirty years in the Pit, and I ain’t done anything quite so queer as having beer with a copper.”
“Honey... that’s your wife?” I inquired, raising my beer towards a picture of the mare from the living room portrait on the bedside table, then taking a quick sip, which was a mistake. I had to restrain myself from spitting all over Bloom; the beer was the foulest piss poor barley-snot I’d ever tasted.
“Honey Bee. Most rightly named pony I ever met.” The stallion sniggered, which devolved into a coughing fit that made my chest ache in sympathy. “She was the sweetest thing in the whole wide world when she was happy... but had the nastiest sting you ever met when she was mad. It was that sting that did it, in the end. Especially after... well, after poor Cosmo...”
“Your younger son?”
“Heh, that old picture in the living room makes us look real nice, don't it?” I nodded and he continued, sipping his beer like it might be his last. “Nawww, Cosmo is the older, though he don’t look it. Even before he got sick he was a thin little thing. All of his mom’s grace but none of my constitution.” Bloom thumped himself on the chest proudly, which produced some pretty alarming wheezing. Taxi put her hoof on his shoulder until he had his breathing under control, then waited for him to go on.
"Leastways, I used to have constitution. They say The Pit... Tartarus... takes everything from you unless you give it freely. The ponies there try to 'correct' behaviors and they sure tried with me. Buncha doctors and nurses and headshrinkers... but I weren't interested in being corrected. I deserved to be there after what I did to Honey Bee...” His lower lip quivered as he added, “...and Cosmo..."
A few tears made thick tracks in his cheek fur and he shoved his straw back into his mouth, sucking mouthful after mouthful of the cheap beer to try to wash his grief away.
“Bloom... Sorry, we've been calling you that. It’s the name on the mailbox. Is there another name you go by?” I asked.
“Blooms fine. Suit yourself kiddo.” He let his shoulders slump, drawing his rear legs up under himself. “Don’t matter what you call me really. My name ain’t worth squat anymore.” His one good eye circled around until it centered on me. “So tell me, who are you and your lady friend really? I’d believe you’re law, but if she’s a cop then I’m a chicken in a horse suit. That hair looks like a sex toy one of the boys made in Tartarus for his conjugal visits.”
“I’m a police detective.” I tilted my beer bottle in Taxi’s direction and she patted her braid, trying to look deeply offended by Bloom’s comment, but unable to hide a quirky grin. “And you’re right about her. That she’s not a cop,” I added, quickly. “She’s my driver and, when she feels like it, my bodyguard. Bloom, can I ask what happened to Cosmo and Honey Bee?”
Straightening his back, the ancient pony pushed himself back on the bed, jostling something behind him that clanked and skittered, like a box of pebbles being shaken. He gave us a look of deep suspicion. “Now why would you care about a piece of ancient history like that if you ain’t here to take me back to The Pit?”
It was a worthy question and I didn’t have an immediate response. Bloom was damn near burning up inside with the need to confess himself. I could feel that the moment I set hoof in his little cave. The perfect condition of the rest of the house, mixed with the utter neglect of his personal space, painted a picture of a pony wracked by internal divisions. One thing can always be relied upon, though. A father’s love for his son.
“Jingle Jangle is caught up in something nasty. Some real ugly pieces of work want him dead or run out of town. I’m just trying to understand him a bit better so maybe I can keep things from getting worse.”
This lie had the benefit of being technically true; I just neglected to mention I was working with those ‘ugly pieces of work,’ and my conscience would surely play havoc with my night’s rest for that if it came to killing the stallion’s son. Like so many of the little evils I commit in the name of the job, I knew I would end up just calling it ‘necessary’ and waiting for them to remove that knot of guilt, and thus delay my inevitable brain tumor.
Bloom considered my answer for a long time, lowering his head onto his forehooves. I was about to reach out and check for a pulse when he said, without moving, “Cosmo got sick. That was when it all went bad I guess. Our whole lives went bad at once.”
Taxi raised her voice to ask, “What kind of sick?”
“Nopony knows,” the elderly stallion replied, his stringy tail slapping against his sides. “It were like his little body didn’t want to be alive no more. I had a whole neighborhood worth of houses to sell and I gave every one to the bank, paid for every kind of specialist you can imagine, and the best they could tell me is his heart was bad. Just bad.”
“Jingle was close with his brother?” I toyed with my straw, taking another reluctant sip. The beer was so hoppy I thought I might be better off eating it with a spoon.
“Heh, that don’t begin to describe it, fella. Jingle Jangle... that sweet boy... offered to donate his heart. Couldn’t have that... but you know there’s always ‘options’ if you’ve got money to spare and nothing to lose. After all them specialists, I still had a nice chunk left. I...” Bloom's face contorted and he went to take a swallow of his swill but his bottle was empty. He stared at it, then rolled it off the bed into a pile of other bottles and heaved a sigh. "I went to a zebra."
Taxi's breathing stopped and the room went very quiet except for the constant buzz of the television in the background.
It might have been a relatively innocuous statement, given that there were plenty of zebras working in nearly every part of pony society, but I got the feeling Bloom could only be referring to one especially nasty brand of zebra. The witch doctor.
The stripes might have contributed a fantastic array of alchemical conveniences to the lives of everypony, as trade with them really expanded in the last century, but they also brought along their own brand of criminal activity. The healing powers of witch doctors were the stuff of legend, matched only by tales of the extremely high cost of their services. If money was no object, it was reasonably easy to get their help, but bits were almost never the only price.
"You went to a witch doctor for your son?" Taxi asked, her voice full of scorn.
"What would you have done if it was your child?" Bloom's gnarled face bent into a grimace. "He was gonna die. You get that? I'd have given anything... and I gave everything!"
The fur on my neck didn't really want me to ask my next question, but curiosity is one of those sick emotions which obeys no master. Wisdom gives us time to think twice before we ask those questions which are going to lead us to answers we'd rather not have. But, as I've said before, I am not a wise pony.
"What did the witch doctor do?"
Bloom tapped his chest on the left side. "Heh, he did what we paid him for. He gave my son a new heart so he could live."
Taxi pushed herself to her hooves. "Your son is dead, Mister Bloom."
A deep well of sadness pooled behind the stallion's eyes. It wasn't a self-pitying sadness; Bloom was beyond that. Whatever emotions he felt towards his own predicament had long since turned to entrenched self-hatred.
"Like I said... It were my Honey Bee's sting what did it in the end," He replied, morosely, turning sideways on the bed and patting something on the pillow next to him.
"What... did the witch doctor do?" I asked again, suddenly not minding the taste of the beer. Anything to cover the flavor crawling up the back of my throat.
"It were a great romantic gesture, at the time, don'tcha know." Bloom tossed his head back, his few remaining bits of mane flying back over his shoulder. In his youth, it might have been quite the gallant gesture. "He bound up Cosmo's soul in our love. Mine and Honey Bee's powered it. So long as we loved each other, my son's new heart would beat."
"I take it that didn't go well?" I said.
"It should have been Jingle Jangle's love for his brother. Should have been, damnit!" Bloom barked, his breathing becoming more labored with each word until he was almost panting. He took a few seconds to get it under control, then went on, “Instead it was me... a busted out construction pony who sold a whole street full of empty houses to a dying bank!" Casting about for something to take out his fury on, Bloom grabbed one of his beer bottles in his teeth and chucked it against the wall. It didn't have the decency to shatter in dramatic fashion; it just clanked impotently against the dresser and clattered to the floor. "You know the bank what owned them all went bust when everything fell apart thirty years back? This one was in a trust for Jingle Jangle, but the rest? I don’t think nopony owns them.”
My teeth were grinding against one another as I started to get a fuller picture of what had turned Jingle Jangle into the pony with the box of broken unicorn horns, but there was one piece missing. I forced my jaw to relax.
“How did your wife die, Mister Bloom?”
For the longest time, he just sat there with his head between his foreknees, his scarred ears moving in little circles. When he did speak, it was without emotion, like he was describing an old dream.
“First few months, things were great. Cosmo was up and running around again. We had nothing, but it didn’t matter. We had our son.” His tail swung under the sheets, scattering what might or might not have been rocks on the bed. The unkind truth was all that would do for a pony as far gone as he and he seemed determined to have it out in the air.
“Then... Honey Bee stopped smiling at me. I remember that most. She stopped smiling.” Raising his leg towards the window, he looked into the distance to a beautiful past, long lost. “You know, she dreamed of a neighborhood full of ponies? Her family were rich and kept her isolated. I was her big rebellion: A poor stallion making his way up in the world... but it turns out there’s only so low you can fall before love ain’t enough.”
Bloom turned to the bed, stroking the object on the second pillow. I was starting to get a prickle in my hindquarters but before I could ask what he had there, he continued, whispering half to himself and half to us, “I came home one day and found her here, with one of the gardener’s assistants. He was barely more than a colt. We fought. I threw him out. Honey Bee was so... frustrated. So angry.” He put his hoof on the back of his head, rubbing one particular spot. “She stung me.” His upper lip curled into an vengeful sneer. “I stung her back. Turns out a bowling trophy stings harder than a frying pan.”
What’s a pony going to say to that? Had it been any ordinary day on the job, Bloom’s confession might have left me ebullient as I hauled him off to serve his sentence. Watching him laying on top of those sheets, stinking of sweat and spilt beer, his entire life stolen by the cruelest twist of fate imaginable, I just wanted to leave him alone like a monument to some kind of terrible tragedy. Any small comforts I might have offered turned to ash in my mouth.
Like a building collapsing in slow motion, Bloom just kept speaking. I wanted him to stop, but hadn’t the heart to stop him.
“Cosmo was with Jingle Jangle.” He indicated the other room down the hall. His voice began to soften until I had to edge a closer just to hear him. “He died with his brother holding him. In all’a ten minutes, Jingle lost his home, his brother, mother, and me. I called the police. Called ’em and they put me in the clink... then in The Pit.”
That was it then. Another tale of suburbia gone wrong. One more to add to my ever-growing body of evidence that says sticking ponies in rows of boxes and declaring them to have ‘come home’ is a recipe for horror.
“So how did you get here?” I lifted my hooves, taking in the entire house with the gesture.
Bloom plucked at a strand of his mane and paused, assembling his thoughts before he replied, “I ain’t rightly sure. One day about a year ago, guards come in The Pit and stick me with a needle full of something. I wake up, I’m here in my own bed. Jingle Jangle is here. He says he paid some ponies to get me and I can’t leave, but the whole house is mine again. I asked and he even... he even brought me Honey Bee. Brought her back to me so she’d be where she belongs!”
“Come again?” Taxi was still standing by the door, pacing back and forth the short distance between the wall and the dresser. “Mister Bloom, your wife is dead too...” But then, I saw her eyes widen, gradually, as if she didn’t want to believe what she just thought. She took a few, extremely hesitant, steps closer to the bed...
...And my entire spine turned to ice as the realization set in.
“Honey Bee... Say ‘hello’ to the nice officer!” Bloom cackled, reaching over to the pillow with both hooves and picking up something smooth and white. He set it between his knees on the bed and his lips peeled back from his teeth into an ill tempered smile. I’d seen the same smile not two hours before in his son’s office.
My brain did a series of extremely complicated acrobatics followed by a spit of oil on the gears and total shutdown. My lower jaw slackened and I stumbled back from the bed, kicking my half empty beer away.
It was a skull. A pony skull. There wasn’t a scrap of flesh to give the pony an identity, but part of her horn was still there, snapped halfway down its length, poking out from between her eye sockets.
If it could be called luck, Bloom got his moment of kismet, because I didn’t have time to kick my trigger into my teeth and shuffle him loose this mortal coil with a dose of extremely therapeutic lead. Celestia save me, I wanted to. The rictus grin on his face matched the one on his dead wife’s just a bit too closely, and the DPD has drilled into our heads that gunfire is a better response to horror than catatonic paralysis. Fortunately for him, Taxi was on him like the crack of a whip. Her hooftips smacked points on his neck and chest just under the collar bone then behind the ear. He was unconscious before he had time to realize he’d been attacked.
Honey Bee’s head slid off the bed, tumbling end over end. Without thinking, I brought my hoof down to stop her from rolling out of the room into the hall, but whoever had glued her back together after the assault with the bowling trophy hadn’t done a stellar job. She exploded like a dropped egg, scattering fragments of bone in every direction. I dumbly lifted my heel, dust spilling from my horse shoe.
“H-Hardy... l-look...” Taxi held out a shaking leg towards the filthy bed. I didn’t want to look. I really didn’t. But my eyes just wouldn’t listen.
A pile of polished bones lay in the bed beside the once-more sleeping body of Mister Bloom. They’d been arranged with great precision on top of the sheet to be in something resembling an equine shape.
“Well, that’s my quota of ‘fucked up’ for today. I’m done,” I said, backing out of the dank little bedroom. My all encompassing instincts were shrieking ‘get out now’ and my cutie-mark felt like a hot brand applied to my hind end.
“S-shouldn’t we... I don’t know... shouldn’t we call the office?” Taxi stammered, her usually collected demeanor completely shaken.
My thought process was still being clogged by a queue of the totally surreal. The absolutely foul beer wasn’t helping.
“How would you explain this?” I asked, shoving a chunk of Honey’s jaw away from my toe. “I, sure as manure, never want to try to write this into a report, and I think dragging his father in might alert King Cosmo that we’re onto him. We were never here. As far as I’m concerned, Bloom died in Tartarus.”
“S-sir?” A voice behind me asked. I almost leapt out of my skin, jerking around to face Swift with my gun bit clamped in my mouth. The rookie was standing in the doorway, her ears splayed in both directions and a slightly shocked look on her face. “Sir... I think you should come take a look at this.” Her eyes alighted on Bloom. “What’s wrong with him?”
“Nothing.” I let my trigger drop and used my rear hoof to brush the crushed remains of Honey Bee to one side where my partner couldn’t see them. “It was his nap time. What’ve you got?”
Swift pointed with one wing at the stair-well. “I... Sir, I think you better just come.”
****
My brain was on a merry-go-round. Cosmo. Jingle Jangle. Bloom. This ‘family’ the lawyer mentioned on the phone. The cracked pieces of skull still stuck in my horse-shoe that I was going to have to get a hose to clean out. That disgusting beer.
We left King Cosmo’s father where he was, snoring to Taxi’s pressure-point lullabye. I don’t know if I’d really have shot the geriatric nutter, but I was glad I’d never have to find out. I’d gone into the mobster’s office prepared for something vile and I thought I’d covered my bases when I asked the ladybugs to warn us of danger.
The house on the empty street shouldn’t have flown in under my Horrifying Crap radar, but something about the place was so much like home, before my father died, that I let myself forget just whose home it was.
Bloom seemed so reasonable and loved his son, despite the sickness that’d eaten his mind during years of imprisonment. A tiny, mad little part of me screamed for even a taste of that familiar affection... and there it was, the crack in my defenses. I shared a beer with a murdering, psychotic prison escapee. Damn me for a sentimental fool.
As I stomped down the stairs, following Swift’s tail around the corner, I began putting myself back in order. I flicked my tail to one side, hitting my cutie-mark with it then flipped it to the other, striking the other one. It was a simple ritual, but those are what can keep a pony from going mad when everything in the world indicates, by all rights, they should. I followed the action with a few deep breaths and some choice words to myself about keeping my head out of my ass, and I was prepared for anything.
Or so I thought.
We hit the bottom of the steps and went around the corner, continuing our descent on the second landing into the basement. A door waited for us at the end of a short hallway. It was as anonymous and featureless as every other in the house, and for that reason, my freshly reconstructed wariness shrieked ‘Danger, Danger!’ at the top of its metaphysical lungs.
Swift might have already scouted the area, but I decided to take it slow. Giving her tail a tug, I tapped the floor three times in a line, then pointed behind me. She obeyed immediately and without question, leaping over Taxi and taking up the rear guard position; a good little soldier marching to my drum. I was glad she hadn’t stayed for the talk with Bloom. Ugliness of that sort should only come along once in awhile, even doing the job we do, and this case was quickly filling up with sordid little details too grim for a pony who hasn’t had time to build a resistance to them. She didn’t need to see that on her third day of work.
I put my hoof on the door and gave it a gentle shove. It swung open and the stink of sweat and chemicals washed over me in a wave. I buried my face in the collar of my coat as my eyes started to instantly water.
A harsh, red glow from an uncovered bulb in the ceiling made everything seem eery and otherworldly, casting stark shadows into every corner. The room was full on every side of short work-benches, each of which was dedicated to a different project of some kind and tools hung from every inch of the walls except the one directly across from the door. Hammers of every sort that might be imagined dangled from the ceiling just low enough to be grabbed with teeth but not so long you'd have to duck to walk under them.
The one wall which hadn't been claimed by the jungle of tools and papers was covered, top to bottom, in pictures. There were hundreds, some cut carefully and others glued slap-dash together so just one character was visible. Every one featured a different image of King Cosmo's family. Jingle Jangle and his brother wrestling in a pile of pillows. Honey Bee kissing Bloom. A wedding photo. Images of a hospital bed.
"...family..." Taxi murmured it so softly I almost didn’t hear it.
"What was that?" I asked.
"It’s his family," she said, clearing her throat and speaking to be heard. "This house? That scene upstairs? King Cosmo is putting his family back together from scratch."
“That doesn’t mean he’s not insane, Sweets.” I pushed the door the rest of the way open, moving into the sticky air of the sanctuary. “He breaks off unicorn’s horns because he has problems with mommy cheating on daddy. Whatever happened to him in his youth, ponies have a choice in what they become, and he turned into a monster.”
“I know but that... that doesn’t feel like what happened to Ruby. You saw the victims in the file, right?” I nodded and Taxi continued, shouldering her way in behind Swift. “Most of them looked like ponies who’d gotten in his way or refused to pay protection fees. He didn’t kill most of them either. Left them crippled or magicless, sure, but murder them? He’s cruel, but nothing I’ve seen says ‘callous slaughterer’ to me. He could be a killer and he’s certainly a beast, but poison isn’t how ponies like him work. He could have poisoned us. Slicing off somepony’s horn then chasing them off a building? It just doesn’t... doesn’t seem like him."
It was true. Cosmo hadn’t lied to us when he’d said he didn’t kill Ruby. I didn’t think to ask if he’d been responsible for her death, but whatever else he might be, the broken colt trying to rebuild his fractured, half dead tribe didn’t strike me as the cold customer who’d taken a file to that girl’s head.
“I... look, now isn’t the time.” I slipped towards the shrine of pictures, each hoofstep feeling far too loud in the small space. “Let’s see if we can find whatever is on the receiving end of that lockbox and then I want to find someplace to hole up for the night. How long is Bloom going to sleep?”
“I doubt he’ll wake up before dinner time.” Taxi rubbed her toetips together as though she wished she could wash them off. “When he does, with any luck we’ll just be an alcoholic dream.”
“That oily crap he drinks is enough to give you booze dreams while you’re awake.” I pushed aside a stack of papers on one of the workbenches and examined an especially well turned tome with the title ‘Equestria’s Legends, Myths, and Malarkey.’ Flipping open the front few pages, I went to the index, where a number of stories were circled in red ink. ‘The Well of Impossible Desires.’ ‘The Lamp Of Dreams.’ ‘The Alicorn Amulet.'
Taxi moved up behind me and read over my shoulder. “Mmm... Looks like somepony wanted to make a wish.”
“What?”
“All those stories.” She ran her hooftip down the row of circled tales. “They’re stories about somepony making a wish. I used to read them all the time when I was a foal.”
“What did you wish for?” I asked, closing the book and setting it back in place. I didn’t really expect an answer, but I got one anyway.
“To grow up faster.”
Her answer hung in the air like a bad smell in a telephone booth, a sad reminder of darker days.
Swift was on the other side of the room, sorting through another stack of paper. Half extending one wing, she set one heap on top of the strong shoulder joint like a table as she raised her voice to be heard. “Sir, I think that King Cosmo was... looking for something.”
“Well, we knew that,” I said. “He found her. She’s dead.”
“No, I don’t mean like that.” My partner held up a folder of newspaper clippings. “Some of these papers are old articles. They’re about ponies getting suddenly rich or doing amazing things. Most of them are... pretty bad ponies.”
“How do you mean?”
“Um...well, here.” She adopted what I was coming to recognize as her ‘recital’ voice. “Don Pastrami was pronounced dead three days after an apparent poisoning attempt by a rival crime family. At his funeral, this evening, he was seen to sit up in his coffin and has apparently made a full recovery. It’s been declared a medical miracle by the Twilight Academy and Sacred Sun Hospital. Doctors are baffled by his sudden—”
“I get the idea,” I interrupted, pulling the paper away from her and examining it. “I remember this incident with Pastrami. Nasty customer. He was head of the Diamond Cutters crime family. Died of a heart attack two years later, right?” I looked at Taxi for confirmation and she dipped her chin affirmatively.
Swift shuffled out another paper and set it on the table. “Most of them are about good things happening to... really really bad people. Look, here’s another one here about a... Lady Miscellany’s trial a few years before that. See what’s circled?”
“Miscellany was represented at trial for murder by... Umbra... Animus, and Armature. All charges dismissed,” Taxi murmured.
“Wait, those lawyers Cosmo called?” I asked, feeling like the fly sitting on the edge of a spider’s web, considering just having a little stroll across.
“I found this too. It was tacked to that article.” Using her free wing, Swift plucked a fragment of what must have been scrollwork off the middle of the pile. There was only three words on it, written in artful calligraphy. I couldn’t make out what it said so passed it to Taxi..
“It’s... really old Equestrian. Maybe even pre-classical era,” she informed us, trying to wrap her mouth around the words. “Op... tare... Op... hmmm... well, that first word is definitely ‘desire’ or ‘wishing’. I don’t know the rest of it. It’s been awhile since I took a course on ancient languages.”
“Take it along,” I replied, using the hem of my coat to blot sweat out of my eyes. The close air was beginning to make me feel a bit ill. “I’ve got an old friend with a lot of ‘specialty knowledge’ I want to go see once we’ve got that diary back and have handled Cosmo. If anypony will be able to get into it, he will, and I want to know what a mob kingpin thought was worth my life. Until then, we need to find the receiving end of Cosmo’s magic safe. Nothing else matters.”
Taxi tucked the scroll into her saddlebag and we spread out, searching walls, tugging furniture, and tapping surfaces. The job should have been short but there was so much detritus jammed into the little room that we were soon resorting to pushing stacks around just to move about. I was starting to get frustrated when Swift let out a triumphal cheer.
“Sir! Sir! I think I found it!”
She was kneeling in front of a truly gorgeous wooden clothing dresser which looked to have been converted to less glamorous purposes. It was wedged into the corner behind a mop and several pans of photography fluids. The developing fluid must have been the source of the chemical smell which was quickly turning my brain to cheese.
“What is it?” I asked, picking up the mop in my mouth and using it to push the trays under one of the work benches.
“This bottom drawer doesn’t open. It’s locked, but there’s no keyhole or anything.” Demonstratively, she hooked her hoof into the handle and pulled. The entire dresser creaked but nothing happened. “It’s not fake. You can see the seams.”
“Wait a second... I remember these! My mom used to have one.” Taxi rose up on her hooftips, excited. “It’s sort of a jewelry box for storing things you don’t want anypony to find. You have to know how to open them. There’s usually a catch or a button. Let me see...”
Swift moved aside so Taxi could take her place. Getting down on her front knees, my driver fished around on either side of the handle. There was a faint click followed by a spurt of chromatic sparkles, and the drawer slid open.
“I... is that... Oh, Celestia save me, I said I was finished with screwed up things for today!”
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2071716 Keep reading. The early chapters are very 'Castle'. Intentionally predictable. Things go off the rails quickly.
-Chessie
Now I'm not naming names...
One of these HAS to be named" the twilight zone".
In highly sterile yet theoretically homey environments, such as a just-opened Jack In The Box or other things that perfectly match an architect's sketchpad and have perpetually smiling staff, I always sense something I have come to dub "the tentacles of the shambling corporate presence." Where there should be a degree of doldrum, despair, tedium, or resistance is only a saccharine and manufactured, uncanny cheer. As if smiley faces had been painted on the soul and there's nothing but emptiness underneath; the inside has been consumed by the parasite borne of a focus group.
...
? No. That's insane. It has to be insane. ...Right?
It looks like you're performing an investigation. Would you like some help? </clippy>
Any other protagonist would have taken the opportunity for a flashback. Hardy's a professional.
JINGLE JANGLE?! The same pony that swathes himself in a haze of evil is named Jingle Jangle?!?! That's... That's... It's like an elder god named Junior! (100 points if you get it.)
.
Oshit.
Well that's a nice horrifying tie-in to the nightmare night special. Nice to see its' canon being acknowledged considering how much trouble it gave you.
Well, we can just roll this allotment of "fucked up" and roll it into tomorrow's. With a surcharge for the cliffhanger, of course.
Ahhh, Detrot, come late for the great story, stay awake at night for the "fucked up platter" with psychological damage sauce.
And maybe "that's insane" was a poor yet apropos choice of words. *shiver*
2072178 See, I wish I could say that Jingle Jangle's damage was one of the worst things we've got planned for this story but... if I'm honest, he doesn't even register on the meter.
-Chessie
2072190
denver.mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/img/mlfw1055_1320093930735-1.jpg
Oooh. So noir. So, so noir...
2072190
Just how deep does this rabbit hole go?
2072512 Alice is puking her guts up about a quarter mile back and we still can't see the bottom.
-Chessie
Jesus, you're really earning that Dark tag, aren't you?
2072605 Gods, I hope so. Kasen held me together through this chapter. I was sick and severely dehydrated in the middle of a blizzard while writing it.
I wish I were kidding.
-Chessie
2072674
Nothing like horrifying wintery death to get the creative juices flowing!
Are the elements of harmony in the dresser?
2072799 You're going to wish they were.
-Chessie
2072820 Would anyone in Detrot even be able to use them?
Interesting developments, dark ones at that. But i suppose that makes sense considering it's Cosmo's history.
Incidentally i'm fairly sure the stereotype for frothing or foaming at the mouth lunatics comes from the drugs administered to them, they were pretty powerful anti psychotic drugs.
I really like the idea of the abandoned houses around this salespony's home gives it an almost post-apocalypse feel. With Bloom protecting that corpse of his lover this is increased even more so. Not to mention creepy.
Bah. Chessie is again being far too modest; despite her crippling seasonal illness, she's outdone herself this time.
We've had the Not Noir Enough comment made before, but we've always been firm believers in the idea that there is no darkness without light. The Pony setting is useful here; It helps provide a colorful contrast to the stark greys and shades of madness that we've gradually been introducing, which are all the more horrifying in the shadow of a more lighthearted opening.
Hopefully the latest chapter gives it more.... shall we say, "noir-cred." And indeed, we're not close to done. If there is anyone who I believe could help coalesce backstories that make Cosmo's look like a Dr. Seuss book, it's Chessie S. Cat over here.
--CEO Kasen
Well this was certainly dark. Mr. Bloom's story was straight out of a Steven King novel mixed with Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. Cosmo's backstory was certainly horrifyingly tragic, and I make not watch a lot of horror films, but I have a good idea what's in that drawer...
And you say later developments will top this chapter? Man, I really hope this story doesn't turn into straight up Lovecraftian horror, it might be too much for me to take. Well, you've already established that dark magic has influences in this story, makes sense to take the next logical step, I supose.
I really hope you get better Chessie; getting sick during winter is the worst, which is why I've always hated this season.
Great chapter, hopefully the next one will will come soon!
2073745 Every two weeks is the plan, for now. Look for them on Sundays.
Yes, later developments make this chapter look positively gentle and sweet by comparison. If you haven't, go read the Nightmare Night side-fic. It'll give you some idea of what sort of world this is.
-Chessie
EDIT: Moved a bunch of grammar notes to a PM.
Great chapter, as always. Loving what you have so far. The creepy slide of Bloom into madness was extremely well done.
Old friend is a guy! Yay new main character is not a female!
great chapter as always, although a tad depressing. Still can't believe it's only day 3!
Nest chapters gonna be REALLY bad isn't it?
A Rose for Emily, much?
3754100 Oh yes...well, a bit. This scene was one of my favourites to write. I've never read A Rose For Emily, but then, I've long since given up on trying to come up with anything 'original'. I steal everything, whether I know I'm doing it or not.
-Chessie
Damn...that just took a really nasty, morbid turn...
I love you two.
Reminds me of an emotion (in Czech?) similar to rage wherein you become so frustrated by an insurmountable obstacle that you lash out and blindly attack random things around you.
I am sure being a race of skittish, sapient herd herbivores in the midst of a world beset with physical and magical predators also contributes to the overall levels of stress and anxiety. Apparently it has gotten so bad that Equestria needs a third demigoddes whose full-time job description is to maintain and tend to interequine relationships throughout the realm...
In other news, business has never been better or more profitable for Equestria's psychologists, therapists, and councillors...
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+1
There is also the grey miasma in offices of strangled hopes and dreams withering under the kindly encouragement of middle-managers. Middle-managers who, as pieces of your soul silently slough off, make you feel good about your dead-end job shuffling papers...
Taxi, that was a PACT arms requisition catalogue...
I know you want to reduce everything Cosmo's hooves have touched down to rubble and matchsticks, but even the most criminal, corrupted, and greedy politician would agree that firing recoilless rifles with anti-Ursa "Thunderhead" magic warheads in the midst of a suburb (no matter how blighted and soulless the HOA is) is a Bad Thing™. It generally leads to raised eyebrows and whispers at the political dinners and awkward questions from the comptrollers...
Of course this house has some sinister, dark secret! I would be more surprised if it did not!
I do not think that is something typically covered by your average HMO.
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(Who wants to make Jello?)
What horrors could possibly lurk behind this door?
- A large fire-pit ringed with iron asadors for cooking foolish employees who got caught cooking the books into Griffon-jerky?
- A red-lit photo lab papered over with photos of vivisection?
- A Jello factory/tannery?
- A coven of ISO auditors?
Ummm...
Somebody should probably investigate those other houses on the street. I have a sneaking, horrified suspicion that Cosmo Jangle wants to fulfil Honey Bee's wish by collecting droves of ponies that no one will miss and manacling, riveting, nailing, or other wise fastening them to various fixtures in the houses, thus "populating" the neighbourhood.
Chapter 15: "Home Is Where The Heart Is" - Its an old saying.
Ones home is where they long to be.
Where they feel safe and at peace.
A house is just a house, but a home is where you feel you belong in this cruel and unforgiving world.
Whether it be with friends or family. And sometimes they can be one in the same.
"A House is Not a Home when there's no one there"
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Ah, but it can be worse when someone is there. So much worse. Especially when it is family...
These tidbits from The Scholar are brilliant; to say nothing of the rest of the story. I'm glad I have 40-some-odd chapters left.
When I put "umbra, animus" into Google Translate, I got "shade. And apparently, "armature means
Umbra, animus + armor= Shade Armor.
Dun dun duuuuun
So, maybe "Umbra, Animus and Armature" has something to do with Dark Magic?
oh crud
This moved me to tears! Oh how sallow the life of one who has lost all and will stop at nothing to get it all back, and to hell with sanity or safety to get it.
I feel like I want to see Cosmo shot between the eyes and finally given a bit of peace and rest to that raging heart infected by sorrow.
But only as hardy fulla tears choked up for all that has happened mutters "This is the only way I can end your pain" through his gun-bit. In many ways hardy and cosmo seem the same to me. Both just want to survive but hardy is doing it as he can see fit legally. Cosmo.... well, his madness of loss made him a monster....
Nothing is more heartbreaking then to hear of a child who lost all and then went made because of it.
THIS CHAPTER ACTUALLY MADE ME CRY!!!!!!
I felt so sorry for Mister Bloom Sr. I felt sadness unlike anything before. The sadness of seeing someone wanting to die but unable to.
Well, I ate while reading the last part... and I was happy noone else was in the room to observe me barely keeping the fluids inside my mouth. (Okay, that was a bit exaggerating, but yes, the dark tag has now a cause.)
Edit: I forgot to say that it's 0:48 AM.
The worst part about H.P. Hoofcraft’s works is that, in the modern era, they are considered to be retellings of real events rather than fictitious accounts.
She’s better than me. I can’t even hit things with the rocket launcher in Halo.
They are very lucky to have found Bloom in a mood to talk, without Cosmo looking over him… VERY lucky. So lucky that I’m suspicious.
Ah, a tragedy tied to magic and emotion…
DANGER DANGER DANGER.
Wishes, huh? Is Cosmo looking for the Genie? Or… whoever he’s working for.
Oh sure, leave me hanging.
-GM, master of rice cakes.
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The cliffhangers were lethal during this entire story, so get used to them. The worst one (in most people's opinions) come at the end of Act 1 and the end of Act 2. There was almost a 3 week wait before the next chapter during those.
-Chessie
If I could, I'd write a fic of all the little lives mentioned in this fic but never touched upon again. This poor sap who gets paid to trim a house to perfection, a random house in the middle of nowhere, and then not ask any questions. Or like, Snow Coy. That hay fries guy. That one pon with ruby blue, the unlucky one.
A solid backstory for what I though was going to be an archetypal mob boss character, very Gentleman Johnny Macrone. I am also digging the hints of the "deal with the devil" law firm. I wish I had caught this as it was updating, that cliffhanger would have had me on the edge of my seat for the full three weeks.
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A surprising number of people still get caught out by the cliffhangers and there are a lot of them. It being episodic, I tried to keep people interested as well as offering something new each week to advance the mainline story.
On the bright side, you don't have to wait eight years to read the ending.
-Chessie
Ah, good; you're not one of those ones who thinks using "bucked" is cute and/or clever.
Because it's not.
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Yeah, I don't know. I tried not to use too much foul language, but it is worth using strategically.
-Chessie
One in.
Something's broken here, might be that them is supposed to be time, or it may be that the sentence was meant to be constructed some way else.
Or to quote Book Horse "Everypony in this town is CR-AZY!" Yeah Ponies are not themost mentally stable beings.
We all know The Pink One is an Eldritch Being from beyond the bounds of reality. Ia! Ia! Pinkth'lu partg'on!
Soooo... his entire family is messed up and he's dedicated his evil career of evil to trying to fix his screwed up childhood. Great, he got upgraded from dangerous mob psycho, to dangerous and highly unstable AF mob psycho. Who seems to be searching out some force hidden in Equestria that is willing and able to help out crimnals.... so either something that simply appreciates a good bit of lawlessness..... or something that requires prices that only those types would be willing to pay.
Still.... great story to start reading this close to Nightmare Night!
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This is a great story for Halloween. Honestly, it just gets weirder as things progress.
- Chessie
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Ehhhhh, kind of but also not even close. He's more a mirror image of Marcone and how things could have gone. Marcone took a tragedy that realistically had no personal cost to him, and used it to drive himself to become head of Chicago's underground in order to impose order and make sure that innocents, especially kids, wouldn't deal with that sort of thing under his watch. Making him a ruthless, but honorable person with a very strict set of standards he holds himself and his underlings to.
Cosmos.... took the tragedy and used it to drive himself to take as much power as possible in order to try and feed is obsession with finding a way to undo it and get his family back, not caring how many other ponies he had to make suffer along the way. He's a ruthless, amoral psycho who will do anything and sacrifice anypony to get what he wants, no matter what with no principals, standards or limits.
Would Hoofcraft’s cat be named Mudpony perchance
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Oh good god. Well, Chessie needs to tell us
Is Hoofcraft just as racist as his namesake?