Mr. Binky

“And this is the bedroom.” She giggled. I had to push the door open myself to look inside, and as I brushed past her, she giggled harder and put a hand over her mouth. I was starting to regret accepting her offer of a nightcap.
“That’s Mr. Binky,” she said, pointing at a teddy-bear sitting stiffly on the bed in front of the floral cushion, which itself was in front of three pink-pillowcased pillows. Mr. Binky was wearing a charcoal three-piece suit and looked like an undertaker. For teddy-bears. “Do you want a cofoffee?”
“A what?” Mr. Binky was giving me the evil eye, I was sure of it.
“A cofoffee. You know, a coffee with a cough.”
I didn’t know, so I asked for a simple black coffee, and as she headed downstairs to the kitchen to make it, kicked myself for not asking for a caramel-soy macchiato and using her inability to make it as an excuse to leave. Everyone can make a black coffee.
I sat on the bed, and looked around. There was a vase of flowers on the windowsill, a floral-print wicker armchair by the window, and a small bookcase at the end of the bed. When I checked its shelves there were eight-years of back-issues of Cosmopolitan and Sun-Tzu’s The Art of War. Having read Sun Tzu a lot in college, I picked up the most recent Cosmopolitan and discovered that she ringed things on the pages. In red marker pen. I put it back down again, and sat back down on the bed.
“Here you go!” She was as cheerful as a Tequila Sunrise. She put two coffees, one black and one white down on the carpet, and then disappeared again. She reappeared moments later with a bottle of cough-syrup and poured a generous three fingers into her cup.
“Are you sure you don’t want a cofoffee?” She giggled, and I wanted to strangle her.
“No, thanks.” I said. “I don’t like sweet things in coffee.”
“Oh, but Mr. Binky does.”
I managed to smile, but I’m not sure how.
“Mr. Binky thinks you’re supercute! He’s really happy that I went out with you tonight.”
I sipped my coffee cautiously, just in case she’d put anything else in there while she was making it. It tasted bad, like most instant coffees do, but at least it tasted like bad coffee. Then I wondered what I was supposed to say; we hadn’t met for a date, she’d just been hanging around at the entrance to the bar when I’d finished watching the hockey and had decided to leave. Her giggle had been cute back then, an hour ago.
“That’s good,” I said, looking at my watch. “Oh, is that the time? I have to work tomorrow, you see, and--”
The growl definitely came from behind me, and I was looking at her face, gauging how nice I’d have to be about leaving, so I’m sure it didn’t come from her.
“Oh, that makes Mr. Binky sad,” she said, and then something warm and furry gripped my throat and pulled me backwards.

A visit to the toystore

Little bones clacked together as the woman lifted the skeletal teddy bear down from the shelf. Grimmerie, the toy-maker, smiled and nodded.
"Ah yes," he said, "that's the remains of a teddy-bear. Suitable for a lost childhood, or perhaps just a child with a morbid disposition. If they wear black too much, like to play in the graveyard, and recite lists of demons instead of nursery rhymes, then that's the toy for them."
The woman jiggled the teddy bear, listening to the bones clack against each other, watching the yellowed skull loll indolently. "It's got a odd kind of attraction to it," she said at last, one hand slipping towards her handbag. "How do you make it? The bones are quite convincing."
Grimmerie laughed, a melancholic sound with an odd reverberation. "They're plaster of Paris," he muttered, sounding embarrassed and ducking his head.
"They're not." The woman sounded pleasant but her eyes were hard and her mouth was a thin blue-lipped line in her alabaster face. Grimmerie started.
"I can assure you--" he started.
"I am a forensic pathologist, and I am very certain that these are real bones. They are the wrong weight for plaster of Paris, they have the wrong sound when they jiggle together, and they have tiny imperfections where tendons and muscles have attached in the past. These are real bones, but they are not the bones of any human or creature that I recognise. I want to know how you achieve this."
Grimmerie was silent for a long time, so long that the woman finally slipped her hand into her handbag and started to draw something from it.
"That's a knife, isn't it," said Grimmerie softly, his eyes glistening with unshed tears.
She nodded.
"It's a Brinchev Kris, I suppose?" he said.
"Of course not. I have done my research, toy-maker. It is a Sukhev Da."
"I see. Then I have no choice do I? The bones are real because they are real. I trap and kill teddy-bears in their natural habitat. Then I skin them and stuff the skins and sell them as high-quality collector's bears, and occasionally I wire up a skeleton and sell it as a curio."
"And how do I find their natural habitat?"
"I have amulets that will open doors. I assume you'll be wanting one?"
"Naturally." She smiled, showing some pointed teeth. "And where are the doors?"
"The amulet will find them. You'll see them change when you look at them."
"Then give me an amulet."
Grimmerie opened a drawer and removed a seven pointed star carved from chalcedony and suspended on a brass chain. He placed it silently, reverently, on the counter and nodded towards it. She took it, weighing it thoughtfully in her hand for a moment, and then slipping it over her head. She tucked it inside her blouse.
"Thank-you," she said.
"I'd find yourself a Brinchev Kris if you're going after what I think you're going after," said Grimmerie. "Brinchev was trusted by many factions, most of whom survived to regret it."
She looked at him with an expression he couldn't puzzle out, and left, taking the amulet and skeletal teddy bear with her.