Dexter by Design

FIVE

THE ORDEAL OF THE WORKING DAY HAD BEEN nightmarish enough, from being stranded without doughnuts in the morning all the way through to the terrifying encounter with what was left of Sergeant Doakes, the vocally enhanced version. Even so, none of this prepared me for the shock of arriving home.

I'd been hoping for the warm and fuzzy glow of a good meal and some down time with Cody and Astor my adopted children perhaps a game of Kick the Can out in the yard before dinner. But as I pulled up and parked at Rita's house —now my house, too, which took some getting used to —I was surprised to see the two small tousled heads sitting in the front yard, apparently waiting for me. Since I knew full well that SpongeBob was on TV right now, I could not imagine what would make them do this. So it was with a growing sense of alarm that I climbed out of my car and approached them.

“Greetings, citizens,” I said. They stared at me with a matched set of mournful looks, but said nothing. That was to be expected from Cody, who never spoke more than four words at a time. But for Astor, it was alarming, since she had inherited her mother's talent for circular breathing, which allowed them both to talk without pausing for air. To see her sit there without speaking was almost unprecedented. So I switched languages and tried again.

“What up, yo?” I asked them.

“Poop van,” said Cody. Or at any rate, that's what I thought I heard. But since none of my training had prepared me to respond to anything remotely like that, I looked over at Astor, hoping for some hint about how I should react.

“Mom said we get to have pizza but it's the poop van for you, and we didn't want you to go away, so we came out here to warn you. You're not going away, are you, Dexter?” It was a small relief to know that I had heard Cody right, even though that now meant that I had to make sense of “poop van'. Had Rita really said that? Did it mean that I had done something very bad that I didn't know about? That didn't seem fair —I liked to remember and enjoy it when I do something bad. And one day after the honeymoon —wasn't that just a little abrupt?

“As far as I know, I'm not going anywhere,” I said. “Are you sure that's what your mom said?” They nodded in unison and Astor said, “Uh-huh. She said you'd be surprised.”

“She was right,” I said, and it really didn't seem fair. I was totally at a loss. “Come on,” I said. “We'll go tell her I'm not going.” They each took one of my hands and we went inside.

The air inside the house was filled with a tantalizing aroma, strangely familiar and yet exotic, as if you sniffed a rose and instead smelled pumpkin pie. It was coming from the kitchen, so I led my small troop in that direction.

“Rita?” I called out, and the clatter of a pan answered me.

“It's not ready,” she said. “It's a surprise.” As we all know, surprise is usually ominous, unless it is your birthday —and even then, there are no guarantees. But I pushed bravely into the kitchen anyway, and found Rita wearing an apron and fussing over the stove, a lock of blonde hair falling unnoticed down across her forehead.

“Am I in trouble?” I asked.

“What? No, of course not. Why would— damn it!” she said, sticking a singed finger into her mouth, and then stirring the contents of the pan furiously.

“Cody and Astor say you're sending me away,” I said.

Rita dropped her stirring spoon and looked at me with an expression of alarm. “Away? That's silly, I— why would I ...” She bent to pick up the spoon and jumped to the skillet to stir again.

“So you didn't call the poop van?” I said.

“Dexter,” she said, with a certain amount of stress in her voice, “I am trying to make you a special meal, and I'm working very hard not to ruin it. Can this please wait until later?” And she jumped to the counter and grabbed a measuring cup, and then rushed back to the skillet.

“What are you making?” I said.

“You liked the food so much in Paris,” she said, frowning and slowly stirring in whatever was in the measuring cup.

I almost always like the food,” I said.

“So I wanted to make you a nice French meal,” she said. “Coq au vin.” She said it with her best Bad French accent, caca van, and a very small light bulb came on in my head.

“Caca van?” I said, and I looked at Astor.

She nodded. “Poop van,” she said.

“Damn it!” said Rita again, this time trying vainly to stick a burned elbow into her mouth.

“Come along, children,” I said in a Mary Poppins voice. “I'll explain it outside.” And I led them through the house, down the hall, and out into the backyard. We sat together on the step and they both looked at me expectantly.

“All right,” I said. “Caca van is just a misunderstanding.” Astor shook her head. Since she knew absolutely everything, a misunderstanding was not possible. “Anthony said that caca means poop in Spanish,” she said with certainty. “And everybody knows what a van is.”

“But coq au vin is French,” I said. “It's something your mother and I learned about in France.” Astor shook her head, a little doubt showing on her face.

“Nobody speaks French,” she said.

“Several people speak it in France,” I said. “And even over here, some people like your mother think they speak it.”

“So what is it?” she asked.

“It's chicken,” I said.

They looked at each other, then back at me. Oddly enough, it was Cody who broke the silence. “Do we still get pizza?” he asked.

“I'm pretty sure you do,” I said. “So how about rounding up a team for Kick the Can?”

Cody whispered something to Astor, and she nodded. “Can you teach us stuff? You know, the other stuff?” she said.

The “other stuff she referred to was, of course, the Dark Lore that went with training to be Dexter's Disciples. I had discovered recently that the two of them, because of the repeated trauma of life with their biological father, who regularly beat them with furniture and small appliances, had both turned into what can only be described as My Children. Dexter's Descendants.

They were as permanently scarred as I was, forever twisted away from fuzzy puppy reality and into the sunless land of wicked pleasure. They were far too eager to begin playing fiendish games, and the only safe way out for them was through me and onto the Harry Path.

Truthfully, it would be a very real delight to conduct a small lesson tonight, as a baby step back in the direction of resuming my “normal life', if one could apply such an expression to my existence. The honeymoon had strained my imitations of polite behavior beyond all their previous limits, and I was ready to slither back into the shadows and polish my fangs. Why not bring the children along?

All right,” I said. “Go get some kids for Kick the Can, and I'll show you something you can use.”

“By playing Kick the Can?” Astor said with a pout. “We don't want to know that.”

“Why do I always win when we play Kick the Can?” I asked them.

“You don't,” Cody said.

“Sometimes I let one of you win,” I said loftily.

“Ha,” Cody said.

“The point is,” I said, I know how to move quietly. Why could that be important?”

“Sneak up on people,” Cody said, which were a lot of words in a row for him. It was wonderful to see him coming out of his shell with this new hobby.

“Yes,” I said. “And Kick the Can is a good game to practice that.” They looked at each other, and then Astor said, “Show us first, and then we'll go get everybody”

“All right,” I said, and I stood up and led them to the hedge between our yard and the neighbors'.

It was not dark yet, but the shadows were getting longer and we stood there in the shaded grass beside the hedge. I closed my eyes for just a moment; something stirred in the dark back seat and I let the rustling of black wings rattle softly through me, feeling myself blend in with the shadows and become a part of the darkness ...

“What are you doing?” Astor said.

I opened my eyes and looked at her. She and her brother were staring at me as if I had suddenly started to eat dirt, and it occurred to me that trying to explain an idea like becoming one with the darkness might be a tough sell. But it had been my idea to do this, so there was really no way around it.

“First,” I said, trying to sound casually logical, “you have to make yourself relax, and feel like you're a part of the night around you.”

“It's not night,” Astor pointed out.

“Then just be a part of the late afternoon, okay?” I said. She looked dubious, but she didn't say anything else, so I went on.

“Now,” I said. “There's something inside you that you need to wake up, and you need to listen to it. Does that make sense to you?”

“Shadow Guy,” said Cody, and Astor nodded.

I looked at the two of them and felt something close to religious wonder. They knew about the Shadow Guy —their name for the Dark Passenger. They had it inside them as certainly as I did, and were familiar enough with its existence to have named it. There could be no doubt about it —they were already in the same dark world I lived in. It was a profound moment of connection, and I knew now that I was doing the right thing —these were my children and the Passenger's and the thought that we were together in this stronger-than-blood bond was almost overwhelming.

I was not alone. I had a large and wonderful responsibility in taking charge of these two and keeping them safely on the Harry Path to becoming what they already were, but with safety and order.

It was a lovely moment, and I am quite sure that somewhere music was playing.

And that really should have been how this day of turmoil and hardship ended. Really and truly, if there were any justice at all in this wide wicked world, we would have frolicked happily in the evening's heat, bonding and learning wonderful secrets, and then ambling in to a delicious meal of French food and American pizza.

But of course, there is no such thing as justice, and most of the time I find myself pausing to reflect that it must be true that life does not really like us very much, after all. And I should not have been surprised when, just as I reached out a hand to each of them, my cell phone began to warble.

“Get your ass down here,” Deborah barked, without even a hello.

“Of course,” I said. “As long as the rest of me can stay here for dinner.”

“That's funny,” she said, although she didn't sound very amused.

“But I don't need another laugh right now, because I am looking at another one of those hilarious dead bodies.” I felt a small inquisitive purr from the Passenger, and several hairs on the back of my neck stood up for a closer look. “Another?” I said. “You mean like the three posed bodies this morning?”

“That's exactly what I mean,” she said, and hung up.

“Har-de-har-har,” I said, and put my phone away.

Cody and Astor were looking at me with identical expressions of disappointment. “That was Sergeant Debbie, wasn't it?” Astor said. “She wants you to go to work.”

“That's right,” I admitted.

“Mom is going to be really mad,” she said, and it hit me that she was probably right —I could still hear Rita making furious cooking noises in the kitchen, punctuated with the occasional “damn it'. I was hardly an expert on the subject of human expectations, but I was pretty sure she would be upset that I was going to leave without tasting this special and painfully prepared meal.

“Now I really am on the poop van,” I said, and I went inside, wondering what I could possibly say and hoping some inspiration might hit me before Rita did.