Only Visible in Moonlight

Detective Skreet Snickertooth picked up the bottle of new whiskey that he was currently indulging in and examined the label against the night sky. His long rattail flicked as he rested his furry brown head on his knuckles as a mysterious new record turned in the dark corner of his private eye office. It was dark and rainy outside, making the air fresh as it danced into his forgotten room.

“Sade Mountain Whiskey,” he slurred, leaning in his leather chair. “Barrel aged. And look at that...” he said, turning the nearly empty bottle towards the skyline of Empire City. On the reverse of the label, on the inside of the bottle, was a faint etching. Upon turning it toward the moon, the rat detective could see a mockup of Empire City’s skyline with an additional ominous tower stretching up from the city.

“Only visible by moonlight,” he said, glancing back at his typewriter and dozens of notes. “Rising up over the city. A city full of creatures dancing and having fun. A city full of creatures that don’t know what’s building beneath their dancing feet.”

Something was happening in the boroughs. Six months ago a rash of a new type of flea had swept through and caused a mass migration. Of course it was overlooked, despite Skreet’s protests. And all the apartments were bought at a steep discount and torn down.

“Poor creatures,” he said, dripping the last few slurps of his new poison into his glass as rain dripped down on his office window in streaks like the claws of a predator. 

“Poor poor. Poor pour.” 

The music - a smoky, noir jazz tune - tinkled through the night air as Skreet reclined. A velvet voice gently intruded on his reverie and Skreet shot bolt upright for a moment... before realizing it was merely the record.

With whispers barely breathed,

In every corner there she seethed.

Her pawns, unwitting, in her grip,

She sealed their fates with blood-red... 

lip...

...stick...

Doctors leaving at the height of the infestation. Medical records changing or disappearing. 

Great new whiskey and a cute little record sent to him through the official channels of his former friends at the police station (who dusted it for prints and poison, of course) were interesting, to say the least. Of course, there were no prints or poison or any indicators of original location... other than a dozen stamps, but Snickertooth had grown to expect that. In between cases and with a hefty paycheck from his last outing, Skreet could enjoy the night air, an aperitif, and soft jazz... for a moment.

He turned to the leather chair across from his desk. It was cut with moonlight from his slatted windowshades and streaked with rain.

“Oh,” he said smoothly, taking another sip. “I didn’t see you come in.”

Wind.

“Of course you can stay,” Skreet said, a playful smile on his brown muzzle. “I’m not entertaining anyone at the moment.”

The shades of his windows shuddered in response.

“I... wonder if we’d like each other,” Skreet said, toasting the shadow. “We have a lot in common. Skulking. Hiding from the sun.”

The record slowed to a stop and started softly skipping. “Let me get that for you.”

Skreet walked past the chair and the pattern of the venetian blinds on the cracked leather seemed to make a shape that he wasn’t sure of. He picked the record’s needle up and placed it back in the center, letting the mysterious record play.

“You knew I was chasing you, didn’t you?” He asked the chair. “You only bothered to blackmail my former partners... the clean ones, at least. The ones... the ones that cared.”

He breathed in. “And you sent this record to me too, huh?”

The chair was coated in slatted moonlight and said nothing.

“You knew to send it through the proper channels. Cleaned it. Twisted it.” He listened to a few slow passages from his record. “It’s funny how the cleanest things are the dirtiest.”

He examined the bottle. “Damn. Empty. I don’t usually like alcohol.”

The wind.

“New expensive drink from Eastern Europe. Pretty good. I wonder if you’d enjoy it. I wonder what species you are.”

Skreet breathed in again, a little shudder.

“Yeah, I’m lonely, heh... How could you tell?”

He blinked, a little tear forming in his yellow eye. “Well, you’re the one that sent me the record. I suppose you knew that already. Are you lonely too?”

He sat up a little. The whiskey had done its work. He was having trouble thinking straight... His thoughts were starting to wander down alleys in his mind that he hadn’t visited in years.

“You’ve gotta be... those records you altered at the hospital?” He hiccuped. The chair sat, and the moon had changed its angle - causing the stripes to form different shadows and shapes on its old surface. “And you had the money to take over those apartment complexes... all under shell companies...”

Skreet’s vision blurred and wheeled as he took his notepad and started scribbling.

“Lonely, obsessive, cunning... or at least intelligent... Would it be trite to say we have some things in common?” He asked the chair. Clouds had moved in and now the back half of his office was nearly completely covered in shadow.

The record began to skip again.

“Ah, that’s okay. I can sleep to record skipping.”

In the alley where the rat lays low, 

she follows the trail only he would know.

A flicker of violet in her gleam,

With shadows dancing at her feet,

Her laughter haunts the darkened street.

Suddenly Skreet was sober. He blinked and blinked, trying to see the other half of his office. He opened the top drawer of his desk searching for his slug-throwing friend... but he had taken the night off, apparently.

“W-Who’s there?”

The record continued playing softly as the moon slowly returned. He looked around for his revolver and found it resting on the chair seat.

For an instant, he thought he smelled something familiar. 

Skreet gulped and tried to sober up.

Surely he wasn’t getting that rusty?

Was it a dream? No. He wouldn’t take his gun out of his desk. It only left when he thought he needed it. Was someone trying to make a point? Skreet stood up and walked to the closet, his gun in hand.

Swinging it open, he saw only his longcoats and hats. He hefted his gun and could tell it was still fully loaded... maybe he had put in the chair after all? That whiskey was powerful stuff.

“In the alley where the rat lies low,” he muttered, repeating the lines from the record. He stopped and sniffed the air again. The scent was gone... perhaps a figment of his recollection, but it conjured a memory. It was a hint of perfume. He hadn’t smelled that since... her.

The night of the city hall bombing - which had only singed him - he had followed the clues down a desolate alley. That’s when he saw a mysterious shadow with a long, lustrous tail, running. That’s when he had the barest scent of her: a perfume that evoked the deep woods.

Still under the spell of the whiskey, he went back to his desk. His special file was still there. He went through the medical records that he had recovered from the event once more, looking for something. A memory lurked out of the darkness, then: he remembered being forced to go to the hospital and was looked after by a very pretty vixen nurse with strange eyes.

“Subject: Lt. Skreet Snickertooth,” he read aloud. “Massive burn. Treat immediately.” 

Aside from his minor singe being described as a “massive burn,” the handwriting on the record was very odd: More like calligraphy than a doctor’s scratchings.

He stood and walked over to the chair, standing over it. “You forced me into that unnecessary overnight stay at the hospital, and now you’re sending me presents. You saw the connection you and I had before I did, huh?” He asked the room as faint car horns glided in through the open window.

“You know?” He said, walking back to his chair. “I have a codename for you. You’re my special case... in between cases. I only think about you on nights like this. Nights that are in between warm and cold.” The rat adjusted himself in his leather chair. “...Between light and dark.”

The chair was still there, moonlight bouncing off its inconsistencies.

“You send something up my spine. Something up my fur. You’re not like my other cases.”

He gulped and looked at the chair as the air turned colder.

“I don’t know how you’d think of my name. I think about you when my whiskey glass is empty and my gun is loaded.”

He waited for anything:

A sign. 

A gasp. 

A scream from the city streets below.

“Noir,” he whispered as sleep crept over him and closed his mind. 

His whiskey glass slipped from his claw and clattered to the ground as a single drop, over the course of a couple hours, seeped into the old wood of his office floor.