by M. R. Forbes
"It's two o'clock in the morning. The banks aren't open."
"Don't be stupid. This one is."
We crossed over the LaSalle Street bridge, into the canyon between the high skyscrapers that made up the bulk of the financial district. The buildings rose up around us, giant skeletons of steel with concrete and glass skin. Lit interiors brought faint, speckled glows to the exteriors, as overnight janitors prepped the offices for the next day's transactions and underground financiers worked the mundane magic that kept the world moving with as little disruption as possible. Most people didn't know how much the Houses actually controlled. Then again, most people probably didn't care to know.
"You're sure this guy is freelance?"
The streets were almost empty this time of morning, barren but for the occasional vagrant with nowhere else to go, or a patrolling squad car. Most people went inside and locked the doors once it got late enough, including pieces of the criminal element. Even if you were a ghost, it wasn't always a safe place to be.
Not since the reversal.
Not since the monsters.
"I'm sure. There's a lot of coin to be made catering to unaffiliated clientele. Turn right up there, go two blocks and pull over."
"As long as you have enough balls to openly defy the Houses." I made the turn and counted the two blocks, and then stopped the van at the side of the road. The street was deserted.
"You see that alley?" Danelle pointed to an especially dark spot between two buildings. "Go in there, all the way to the back. There's going to be an emergency exit. Go inside, and climb up to the sixth floor. If anyone tries to stop you, tell them you're there to see Mr. Clean. If they still won't let you by, do what you have to."
"His name isn't really Mr. Clean, is it?"
"Close. What does it matter? Oh, and just so you know what to expect, he's a goblin."
"You're kidding?"
She gave me the evil eye. "Do I look like I'm kidding?"
It wasn't that I was racist against leathers. I had worked a shift in a clinic that treated them almost exclusively. Their mistrust had been palpable, but when you set a broken bone, or treated a case of ambrosia, they were as grateful as anybody else. My surprise was more because this Mr. Clean had somehow beat the odds and made something of himself. The fact that he was doing it in the same thread of reality as the Houses only made it more impressive.
I got up and moved to the back of the van, unlatching the steamer and lifting the lid. There was no order to the way we'd packed the guns, we'd just piled them in as we found them, and so I grabbed the first pistol I saw. It was a standard issue piece, matte black and plain in appearance. I shoved it into the back of my pants, under the trench coat. I dug around a bit to find a second handgun, and gave it to Danelle.
"I'm not leaving you here alone, either."
The place where we had stopped was pretty light on energy, but it was enough to get Evan up and moving. I lifted the lid to the cooler and reached in, pulling on the fields and sending the magic through me and into the corpse. I was still a little freaked out by what Rayon had said, and my voice trembled when I called him back.
"Captain Evan Williams. Time to deploy."
The cold, glassy eyes became a little less cold and glassy. A skeletal arm reached up and grabbed the edge of the cooler, and his half-face created an angry sneer.
"You know I hate when you call me like that, asshole. You were never on the force, so don't act like you're my C.O."
"Just get up," I said. I didn't like Evan. I never had. I respected him for the badass he had been when he was alive... excluding the fact that he'd gotten blasted in the chest by his own wife after he'd almost beat her to death.
He lifted himself from the cooler and stepped out, his bone foot making a hollow sound when it landed on the floor of the van. "Well? What do you want?"
"I want you to defend the van. If anything tries to give Danelle trouble, take care of it."
He glanced over at her and sighed. "Invalid duty again?"
"Fuck you, Evan," Danelle said.
"Back at you. It's not like I have a choice." He looked over the collection of weaponry. "Still no M-16?"
"Do you know how much those things cost?"
He picked up the Bushmaster. "This is close enough, I guess. You want me inside or outside?"
"Stay inside unless there's trouble."
"Fine. Now get lost."
I went back to the front of the van. "Any last words?"
"Try not to touch anyone. We can't afford to boost you a second time in the same week." She handed me the card.
I nodded and went out through the drivers side, circling around the back of the van towards the alley. The street was still deserted, and the quietness left me feeling edgy. Even so, I made it to the rear of the building without incident.
The door was there, just as Danelle had said. I tried to push it open. Locked. I looked around while I dug my hand into another pocket, locating my set of picks and bringing them into the open. I moved myself so my body hugged the door while my hands worked the picks, and the picks worked the tumblers. The door was open inside of five seconds.
I slipped in, using as little space as possible. I was in the inner emergency stairwell, a narrow, dimly lit vertical expanse of metal grated stairs. Looking up, I could see a pair of size twenty feet three floors above me. They weren't moving, so I could only assume the wearer hadn't heard me come in.
Which left me with an interesting choice. Sneak up on him and take him out, or let him know I was here right now. I tucked myself into the shadows and watched him for a minute while I tried to decide. Danelle had known there would be guards in the stairwell, which meant they could probably be reasoned with.
"Hello," I said, raising my voice and stepping out of the shadows. The pair of feet shifted, and then a large head leaned over the railing, looking down at me.
"How'd you get in here? I didn't hear nuthin'." His voice was deep, and it echoed through the stairwell.
I ignored his question. "I'm here to see Mr. Clean."
"What for?"
I held up the card, making sure it caught enough of what little light there was that he would understand.
"Who's the ghost?"
"Daaé." Every ghost had a handle. That one was Dannie's.
He stopped looking down at me. There was some rustling. His voice carried in the narrow enclosure. "Got a ghost here... Daaé... Mr. Clean... yeah, okay." His head re-appeared. "Come on up, slow like. Keep your hands where I can see 'em."
His small, dark eyes followed me a I wound my way up the steps, walking as lightly as I could so that the soles of my boots barely made a sound on the steel. I wanted him to know I could have snuck up on him, if I'd wanted to.
Even when I reached the third floor landing, I still had to look up. The leather was nearly seven feet tall, and my head only hit his thick chest. He glared down at me past his wide, flat nose and smiled, holding out a meaty hand. "Gimme your piece."
I returned his smile and slowly reached under the trench to remove the gun from my pants. I dropped it into his waiting palm.
"You'll get this back when your business is done. Head up to the sixth."
I didn't say anything else to him. I stepped past his hulking form and climbed the next three flights of stairs. I coughed once when I got to the top. The downward spiral was beginning again already.
There was another orc behind the stairwell door, and he opened it for me when I arrived. He looked a lot like the first, but with straighter black hair and a fancy silver earring. His ordinance was heavier too, a fully-automatic assault rifle with an extended clip.
"You Daaé?"
"I'm the only one on the stairs."
He grunted a laugh. "Smart ass. Third door on your left. Don't touch anything."
I nodded and walked by. I was in a long hallway with a pink marble floor and a scattering of doors on either side, each leading to a different financial office. All of them were likely owned
by one House or another, through all sorts of shell corporations and entities that made them difficult to trace all the way back. The third door on the left belonged to 'Simon & Williams Accounting'. It was the only one whose lights were on. Looking through the small glass window, I could see a receptionist desk with a pretty young woman sitting behind it. I turned the handle and walked in.
"I'm-"
"Daaé," the woman said. She was a petite thing, with shoulder length blonde hair and delicate features. I could see the tips of her ears poking out through strands of gold.
"Does Mr. Clean have a thing against homo sapiens?"
The elf smiled. "My mother is a traditional human, so I would say probably not. You can have a seat over there." She directed me towards a row of chairs.
"I have to wait?"
"You don't like to wait?"
I approached the desk. I was six floors up and a hundred feet in from the street, and I could feel my line to Evan wasn't as strong as I'd like. "I left my friend outside in the van. I'd prefer her to still be there when I get back."
She looked like she actually cared. "Just a minute."
She stepped out from behind the desk and walked past me to a door on the left, giving me a whiff of fruit and spices. It wasn't perfume, elves just smelled that way, even halves. I took a deep breath to gather it in. For the dying, it was like taking a hit of life.
Of all the new humans, elves were the most integrated into the society of the now 'traditional' humans, to the point that half-elves were becoming somewhat common. Others, like the orcs, goblins, ogres, and other so-called leathers were still fighting for equal rights, fair job opportunities, and all of the socioeconomic bullshit that had plagued the prior minorities for so long. It was amazing how quickly that racism had been forgotten once a few new races had started manifesting.
In the beginning it had been much worse, with a whole lot of 'cides. Suicide, fratricide, infanticide, genocide. Until the Houses had put an end to it, even going so far as to force the major governments to parcel out land where the leathers that didn't want to deal with all the crap could do their own thing. That move had ended the threat of open warfare, and limited the problems to simple hate and segregation.
We never learned.
She came back in. "He'll see you now."
"Thank you, Miss..."
"Salazar."
"Miss Salazar. I don't deserve your kindness."
Her eyes were soft and sincere. "You look like you could use all the kindness you can get." She flashed me another smile, gave me another fruit and spice walk-by, and motioned towards the door.
I pushed through a frosted glass door into an open space filled with low-walled cubicles and computers. A light from a flat monitor provided the path to Mr. Clean. I could see him already, a small-statured man with a bald head and a subtle green pigmentation to his thick skin.
"Daaé," he said when I reached him. He turned his head from the monitor, the screen filled with numbers. He stood and stuck out his hand. "My name is Sal, it's a pleasure."
It might have been a test, but unlike some, I didn't hesitate to shake. "Thanks for seeing me."
"No need to thank me, no need at all. I don't mean to be rude, but I'd like to get this business concluded so I can get back to more important matters. I would have made you wait, but my assistant Gloria took pity on you. Do you have the card?"
Pity? I held myself in check and found the card in my pocket. He pulled it from my grip.
"I'm sending it through about two dozen accounts, so it will take a couple of days for the funds to show up."
Great. I might be dead before I saw the statement. "How do you know where to deliver it?"
"Don't worry about that, pal." His fingers flew along the keys, and screens flashed one after another. Then he put the card in front of it and scanned it. "Done."
Two million sitting in our account in two days. All I had to do now was finish the job, and time wasn't on my side. "The kill team can track the card's path back to you. How do I know you won't snitch if they come for me?"
He turned his chair back to me. "Who said I wouldn't snitch? This protection is only good as long as you finish the job. I've got a business to run, and I run it by misdirecting the Houses, not misleading them. Now, if you don't mind." He waved his hand, shooing me away.
I stood there for a few more seconds, but Sal didn't notice. He'd already put his attention back on the monitor, and was flitting through screens faster than my eyes could follow.
"You still here?" he asked, without turning his head.
I thought I should say something, but what would be the point? I turned and left.
When I reached Miss Salazar, she looked at me with a sad expression. "It's just the way he is."
I nodded, but didn't say anything.
Pity?
CHAPTER SEVEN
No rest for the wicked.
"Boring night," Evan said, the minute I opened the door to the van and slid back in behind the wheel. I pulled the door shut and looked over at Danelle.
"That was pleasant."
She laughed. "Clean? It's just his personality, but can you blame him? Goblins don't have it easy, even among the other leathers."
"Next time you can watch Wendy Wheelchair, and I'll go take care of business." Evan opened the steamer trunk and tossed the Bushmaster back inside. "I'm going to get rusty, as little action as I've been seeing lately. Either use me or let me sleep, but this guard duty bullshit is getting old."
I wasn't in the mood for Evan's mouth. "Stand down, captain."
He groaned through his teeth while he climbed back into the cooler. It didn't matter how much he hated me, he wasn't in charge. "I hope you die before you need me again." He pulled the lid closed, and I cut the cord.
"The money's being transferred as we speak, minus four hundred thousand, but it won't show up for a couple of days." I started the van and pulled away from the curb, out onto the empty streets. Unlike Evan, I was grateful for the quiet.
"One less thing to worry about," Danelle said. "Now we just need to find a new place to live."
"You aren't making the trip to the coast with me?"
She gave me the 'stop being a dumb ass' look. "What use would I be to you? I can roll this thing pretty quick, but all it takes is a flight of stairs and I'm out of the action. Let's just find somewhere for me to hole up, and I'll see if I can dig up anything about what it is you're going to try to steal."
"Fair enough. There's plenty of lousy hotels outside of O'Hare. Just pick one that doesn't have valet. I don't think they'd like the surprises in the back."
She found my cell in the glove compartment and hit the internet. I navigated us out of the Loop and made my way to I-90 while she searched for a good rate.
"How about the Best Western?"
"Free continental breakfast?"
"And free wi-fi."
"Jackpot."
By the time we pulled into the parking lot a little bit later, Dannie had already managed to score me an executive coach seat on a four o'clock flight to Connecticut. She'd also arranged for me to pick up a car there.
"I don't know what I'd do without you," I said, as I opened the passenger side and helped her with her chair. In truth, I did know, but it was a ritual we'd started whenever she would help me arrange a job.
She smiled and put her hand on my cheek. "You'd be dead. In a ditch. Or maybe an alley." She released my face and vaulted from the van to the chair with practiced ease.
Her answer wasn't too far from the truth. After all, she'd found me half-dead in a gutter.
"Can I help you?" Our rep's name was Jonathan. He was a heavyset man with a goatee and a light wisp of brown hair. When he looked at me, it was with an odd mix of fascination and disgust. I thought it was ironic, considering that he was killing himself on purpose.
"I made a reservation online," Danelle said, getting his attention. "Daaé."
He ran his fingers along the touchscreen, doing some turn
s and taps. "Credit card?"
She reached into the lip of her bra and grabbed her plastic, resting it on her index finger and thumb. She flicked it up, flipping it so that it twirled end over end and landed cleanly on the desk.
"Wow, nice." Jonathan picked up the card.
"You've been practicing," I said.
"A little."
Jonathan swiped it, did some more random tapping, and then prepped a couple of room keys for us. "Room 207. The elevator is right around the corner. Go up, follow the signs." He handed me the card-keys and the credit card, and looked over at Danelle. "Are you sure you don't-"
"She's sure," I said, cutting him off. It was obvious to anyone that Dannie had no legs, but that didn't mean she liked being treated that way. A handicap room would have been easier to manage, but she wasn't interested in easy. She wanted to live her life the way she had before, in every way she could.
I could understand that, even if I couldn't do the same.
"Okay. Enjoy your stay."
I nodded my thanks, collected our luggage, and followed Dannie to the elevators.
"You've only got three hours before your flight," she said while she rolled on board for the short ride up.
"I thought I'd go over the kinetics a few more times. I need to synchronize."
"That's a good idea."
We found our room and made our way inside. It was a standard three-star hotel room, with a queen bed, a writing desk, an armoire with a flat-screen, coffeemaker - the usual. It hadn't been renovated in a while.
"Home sweet home. You better make it back. I don't think I can stand being stuck in this place for more than a few days. The colors are awful."
"Do you say that about me?" I wore black ninety percent of the time. I wore gray the other ten. Colorful threads didn't look good on me. They tended to accentuate the pallor. "You know, if I die, you still get to keep the money."
"Only if I can convince the kill team that I had nothing to do with it. What do you think the odds are that they'll even give me the chance?"
"I already feel guilty."
She rolled over to her luggage, lifting and heaving it onto the end of the bed. "I'm not trying to make you feel guilty. This is death or death for you, I get that, and I hitched my wagon to yours a long time ago. We're in the shit together."
