Games Creatures Play

by Charlaine Harris

  As I gained full control, vision returned. I was sitting in one of the diner’s seats looking down at the corpse of the body I’d been wearing—the body Phi had killed.

  Damn, I thought, chewing the last bite of food the woman had been eating as I asserted control. It left a faint taste of honey and pastry in the mouth. Phi had a gun. That meant the body he’d taken had happened to have one. Lucky bastard.

  A group of old women in cardigans and headscarves squawked in the seats around me, speaking a language I didn’t know. Other people shouted and screamed, backing away from the body. Phi was gone, of course. He’d known the best way to lose me was to kill my body.

  Blood seeped out of the corpse and onto the chipped tile floor. Damn. It had been a good body—I’d gotten lucky with that one. I shook my head, lifting the purse beside me—I assumed it belonged to the woman whose body I’d taken—and began to dig inside. I was an old lady, like the others at the table. I could see that much in the window’s reflection.

  Come on, I thought, standing up and continuing to search in the purse. Come on . . . There! I pulled out a mobile phone.

  I was in luck. It was an old flip kind, not a smartphone, which meant it wasn’t locked or passcoded. Ignoring the yells of the old lady’s dining companions, I walked around the corpse on the floor, stepping out onto the street.

  My exit started a flood, like I was the cork popped from shaken champagne. People left the diner in a run, many white-faced, a few clutching children.

  I dialed Longshot’s number. She was the one Phi was hunting, but she wanted to be useful. We often left one of our number back in a situation like this anyway, using him or her to coordinate. With the rest of us jumping bodies and finding new mobile phones, the best way to stay in touch was to have one person keep a set number and phone, taking calls from the other four and relaying messages.

  The phone picked up after one ring.

  “It’s Dreamer,” I said.

  “Dreamer?” Longshot wore a body with a smooth, feminine voice. “You sound like an old lady.”

  “That’s because I am one. Now.” My voice bore a faint accent from the soul that had held this body. Things like that stayed. Muscle memory, accents, anything not entirely conscious. Not languages, unfortunately, but some skills. I’d once stayed in the body of a fine pianist for a couple of weeks playing music alone as the ability slowly seeped away from me.

  “What happened?” Longshot demanded.

  “His body had a gun. He ducked into a restaurant and popped me in the head when I followed. I don’t know which way he went after that.”

  “Damn. Just a sec. I need to warn the others that he’s armed.”

  “This could be a good thing,” I said, glancing to the side as a couple of cops pushed through the growing crowd. “The mortal police will be after him now.”

  “Unless he Bolts from his body.”

  “He’s on his third body already,” I said. “He doesn’t have many to spare. Besides, Bolting would risk losing the gun. I think he’ll stick to the same body. He’s brash.”

  “You sure?”

  “I know him better than anyone, Longshot.”

  “Yeah, okay,” she said, but I could hear the implication in her voice. He knows you too, Dreamer, and he got you. Again.

  I lowered the phone as Longshot hung up and began calling the other three. I itched to be off, chasing Phi down again, but I had to be smarter than that. We knew where he was going—his goal would be Longshot, who hid atop a building nearby, unable to move. What we needed to do was make it tough for him to get to her.

  Phi wouldn’t escape me this time. No more failures. No more excuses.

  “Excuse me?” I said, hobbling over to one of the police officers trying to manage the crowd. Damn, but this body was weak. “Officer? I saw the man who did this.”

  The officer turned toward me. It’s still surreal to me how people’s responses to me change depending on the body I’m wearing. This man puffed himself up, trying to look as if he was in control. “Ma’am?” he asked.

  “I saw him,” I repeated. “Short wiry fellow. Tan skin, maybe Indian, with a green jacket and cap. Lean face, high cheekbones, short hair. Perhaps five foot five.”

  The cop stared at me dumbly for a moment. “Uh, I’d better write this down.”

  It took a good five minutes for them to get down my description. Five minutes, with Phi running who knows where. Longshot didn’t call me, though, so I didn’t have anywhere to go. I’d know soon after one of the others spotted him. Two of the others would be out like I was, hunting Phi on the streets. One last man, TheGannon, guarded the approach to Longshot’s position.

  A team of five to deal with one man, but Phi was slippery. Damn it. I couldn’t believe he’d gotten the drop on me again.

  I was finishing my description of his body for the sixth time when Longshot finally called me. I stepped away from the officers as they got corroborating information from other diner patrons and called in the description. An ambulance had arrived, for all the good it would do.

  “Yeah?” I said into the phone.

  “Icer decided to get a vantage atop a building on Broadway. She caught sight of our man moving down the street, almost at Forty-seventh. Moving slowly, like he’s trying to not draw attention. You were right, he’s in the same body as before.”

  “Awesome,” I said.

  “Icer is on her way down to hunt him. You’re not going to let your past issues with Phi get in the way, are you, Dreamer? Phi—”

  “I put the cops on his trail,” I said. “I’m Bolting, but I’ll keep this phone.”

  “Dreamer! You’ll be on your last body. Don’t—”

  I closed the phone, turning back to the policemen. I chose a muscular man with dark skin. He wore a white shirt instead of blue, and the others had called him Lieutenant.

  “Officer,” I said, hobbling up, trying to get his attention without alerting the other police.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said distractedly.

  I faked a stumble, and he reached down. I grabbed his wrist.

  And attacked.

  It’s harder when you’re already in a body. The soul immediately gets attached to the body, and forcing out and into something else can be tough. Besides, when you’re out of a body, the primal self takes hold, and it helps you—nearly mindless though you are—claw your way through another soul’s defenses.

  Some people say you can control the primal, body-less self. Learn to think while in that mode. I’d never been able to do it. Anyway, I had a body already, and part of my energy had to be dedicated to holding down the soul inside, that of the old lady. At the same time, I had to attack the police officer and force his soul aside.

  The man gasped, eyes opening wide. Damn. His soul was tough. I strained, like a man straddling between two distant footholds, and shoved. It was like trying to push down a brick wall.

  I will get him, this time! I thought, straining, then finally toppled that wall and slipped into the new body.

  The disorientation was over more quickly this time. The officer stumbled as he lost control of his limbs, but I had the body before he dropped. I caught myself on a planter, going down on one knee, but didn’t collapse fully.

  “Lorenzo?” one of the others called. “You okay?” They’d covered the corpse with a white blanket. It lay just inside the door to the diner. Fleeing people had tracked blood out in a mess of footprints, but some diner occupants and employees still huddled inside the restaurant, shocked by the horror of the death. I could remember that fear, vaguely, from when I’d been alive. The fear of death, the fear of the unknown.

  They had no idea.

  I nodded to the other officers, standing back up, and when they weren’t looking I slid the phone out of the hand of the old lady. She stood frozen and slack-jawed. Her soul would reassert itse
lf over the next hour or so, but she wouldn’t remember anything from our time together.

  I pocketed the phone and began to jog away.

  “Lieutenant?” one of the officers called.

  “I have a lead,” I said. “Keep going here.”

  “But—”

  I left them at a run. The police thought the killing to be a gang-related hit, and so far, they hadn’t shut down the streets or anything. Maybe they would, but it was better for me if they didn’t. That would mean more bodies for my team to use, if they needed to.

  The cop’s body felt strong and energetic. I was left with the faint impression of a melody the cop had been singing in his head before I stole it. That and . . . a face. Wife? Girlfriend? No, it was gone. A fleeting image lost to the ether.

  I jogged around the corner, keeping an eye out for the glow of a body that was possessed. This area was close to Longshot’s building. If Phi got to her . . .

  She wouldn’t have a chance against him. I slowed my pace as I reached the place where Icer had spotted Phi. There was no sign of either one.

  I wove through the crowds of lively, chattering people. The cop was tall, giving me a good vantage. It was strange how unaware people were. Two streets over, people stood in chaos, horror, or disbelief. Here, everyone was laughing and anticipating a night at a show. Street vendors cheerfully took tourist money, and dull-eyed people earning minimum wage handed out pamphlets nobody wanted to read.

  Phi would be close. Longshot’s building was just down the street, with her atop it. He would case the area, planning how to attack.

  I waited, anxious, tense. I waited until the earbud I wore—tapped into the official police channels—spouted a specific phrase. “Marks here. I think I see him. Broadway and Forty-seventh, by the information center.”

  I started running.

  “Don’t engage him,” the voices crackled on the line. “Wait for backup.”

  “Lieutenant Lorenzo here,” I shouted into the microphone. “Ignore that order, Marks. He’s more dangerous than we thought. Take him down, if you can!”

  Others on the line started arguing with me, talking about “protocol,” but I ignored them. I unholstered this body’s gun and checked to make sure it was loaded. Now we’re both armed, Phi, I thought. I charged around a corner, people flinging themselves out of my way once they saw the uniform and the gun raised beside my head. The shouts that chased me this time were of a different type—less outraged, more shocked.

  Gunfire ahead. For a moment, I hoped Marks the cop had done as I told him, but then I saw a glowing yellow figure drop to the ground. It wasn’t Phi.

  Icer, I thought with annoyance. Indeed, Phi—still wearing the body with the green jacket—scrambled down the street after dropping Icer. I didn’t have a very clear shot, but I took it anyway, pulling to a halt, raising the gun, and firing the entire clip.

  This body had practiced with a gun. I was far more accurate than I had any right to be, bullets spraying the walls—and, unfortunately, crowd—right near Phi. I didn’t hit him. I got so close, but I didn’t hit.

  “Damn it!” I said, charging after him. The crowds nearby were screaming, throwing themselves to the ground or running in stooped postures. Phi was heading straight toward Longshot’s building.

  Another gunshot popped in the air. I moved to dodge by reflex, but then saw Phi drop in a spray of blood.

  What?

  A cop stood up from beside a planter, looking white in the face. That would be Marks, the one who had called in the sighting. The cop raised his head in horror, looking around at the mess. People groaning from gunfire gone wild, the dead body Icer had been using, and now the fallen Phi.

  The cop walked toward Phi’s body.

  “No!” I yelled. I scrambled for my microphone, running forward. “Someone tell Marks to stay back! Marks!”

  He stiffened, then dropped. I cursed, trying to reach him, but there were so many people about, huddling, looking for cover, getting in my way. I drew closer, fighting through them, in time to see the body of Marks—a young, redheaded man with a spindly figure—stand up again and turn in my direction. Phi was on his fourth body. He lowered Marks’s gun toward me.

  Not again, you bastard, I thought, throwing myself to the side as four shots fired into the crowd. Only four—the gun had been partially empty.

  I came up from my roll, thankful that Lorenzo was so athletic. My body knew what to do better than I did. Phi was already off and barreling toward Longshot. No subterfuge now, no casing the place. He knew that shots fired into a crowd would make this place go dangerous very, very quickly.

  I ran after him, yelling into my microphone, “Marks has been working with the target. I repeat, Marks has been working with the target. In pursuit.”

  Well, that might just sow more chaos. I wasn’t certain. I pulled my earbud out as I gave pursuit. The mobile phone from the old lady was ringing. I put it to my head as I ran.

  “Icer is down,” Longshot said. “It was her third.”

  Damn. I was out of breath.

  “I think he got Rabies too,” she told me. “He was only on his second body, but I can’t reach him. He must not have a phone yet. It’s you, Dreamer.”

  “TheGannon?”

  “Gone,” Longshot said softly.

  “What the hell do you mean, gone?” I demanded, puffing.

  “You don’t want to know.”

  Damn, damn, damn! TheGannon was our door guard. “Phi is still armed,” I told Longshot. “If he gets to you, try your best.”

  “Okay.”

  I pocketed the phone, holstered my gun, and gave the run everything I had. The street had gone to chaos quickly. With the wounded lying about, the people dropping papers and possessions as they ran and screamed, the cars stopping and people hiding inside, you’d have thought it was a war zone. I guess it kind of was.

  I slid across the hood of a car, keeping pace with Phi—even gaining on him a tad—as he reached the target building. He didn’t go inside, however. Instead, he pushed into the building next to it, a low office building with reflective glass windows.

  He doesn’t know that TheGannon is gone, I realized, charging after. He’s trying to keep himself from being pinned. The office building and the target were similar in height. He could easily jump from one roof to the next.

  He still had a lead on me, and it was a good minute or so before I hit the door, shoving my way in. This time I watched for an ambush. I didn’t find one; instead, I saw a door on the other side of the entryway swinging shut.

  “What’s going on here!” a security guard demanded, standing beside his desk near the door.

  “Police business,” I yelled. “That doorway? It’s a stairwell to the roof?”

  “Yeah. I gave your buddy the key.”

  Damn. He could reach the roof, lock me out, and then jump over and take out Longshot. Phi was a clever one, I had to give him that much credit.

  I entered the stairwell. I couldn’t worry about gunfire. I had to charge up those steps as fast as I could. If he shot me, he shot me. There was a chance that would happen, but if he got to the roof, I lost. And I would not let him get away again!

  I heard puffing and footfalls above me as I took the steps. My body was in better shape than his, but I’d been running longer than he had. Still, talking to the guard must have slowed him down, and I seemed to be gaining on him.

  I rounded another corner in the white-painted stairwell, passing graffiti and concrete corners that hadn’t seen a mop in ages. I was gaining on him. In fact, when I neared the top floor, I heard rattling as he worked on the door.

  No! I forced my way up the last flight of stairs, reaching the top right as Phi pushed it closed on the other side. I slammed into it, exploding out onto the rooftop before Phi could lock it.

  He stumbled away, red hair plaster
ed to his head with sweat, shoulders slumping from fatigue. He tried to get out his gun, fiddling with an extra clip, but I tackled him.

  “You’re mine, this time,” I growled, holding him to the rooftop. “No slipping away. Not again.”

  He spat in my eye.

  Admittedly, I wasn’t expecting that. I pulled back in revulsion, and he kicked me in the leg, shoving me off and throwing me to the side.

  I cursed, wiping my eye, scrambling after him as he ran across the roof. The target building was next door, maybe five feet below this one, no gap between. My body’s muscles were straining after that climb. I could still hear shouts from the chaos below, sirens wailing in the distance.

  Phi jumped onto the rooftop. I followed. Longshot was there, wearing a young woman’s body, backed up against the far corner of the building. Phi ran for her.

  I screamed and threw myself forward, plowing into him just before he reached her.

  And that tossed both of us off the building.

  It was the only thing I could have done. If I’d gone slower, he’d have reached her. At this speed, I couldn’t control my momentum. We fell in a heartbeat and crashed to the ground.

  Disorientation.

  Primal forces, driving me toward heat and warmth.

  No. That was my last.

  The thought bubbled up from deep within. Some say it’s possible to control the primal self, the freed self.

  I lashed out this direction, then that, but somehow held control. I could see Phi’s spirit moving turgidly toward a body, and I somehow forced myself to follow. Two glowing fields, like translucent mold, seeping along the ground unseen to mortal eyes. Still a chase. A chase I would win.

  I reached him just before he got to the warmth, and I latched on. I held tightly, clinging to him, and like an unwieldy weight, stopped him from getting into the body. He battered at me, clawed at me, but I just held on. I’d lost knowledge of why I did what I did, but I held on. For a time, at least. An eternity I could not count.

  Finally, he slipped away, as he always does.

  I found another warmth, then opened my eyes to a smiling face. “Longshot?” I said, disoriented. I was lying on the ground in a new body, a construction worker, it appeared. The contest was over; I’d be allowed this body now.