by Tim Waggoner
He went on before I could respond.
“Tonight isn’t the first time that you’ve not performed at optimal level. I’m well aware that in the field, events occur at a rapid pace, and unexpected developments are the norm rather than the exception. All the more reason why officers – human officers – need to make sure they’re tending to their physiological and psychological needs.”
Once humans bring an Incubus to life – in other words, become Ideators – they no longer need to sleep. Ever. In fact, they can’t sleep if they try. Sleep aids are ineffective. It takes a massive dose of tranquilizer to put us out, and even then we don’t stay unconscious for long.
But not needing sleep isn’t the same as not needing rest. Ideators still get tired physically, as well as mentally. And when that happens, we start making mistakes. Not so bad if you’re trying to make lunch and accidentally put strawberry jelly on your ham sandwich instead of mustard. A much bigger deal if you’re an officer tasked with preventing living nightmares from causing trouble – such as eviscerating people – and fail.
Sanderson was accusing me of not resting enough to the point where it had put me off my game. And the hell of it was, I feared he was right. Not that I was about to admit it.
“I make sure to get the minimum daily requirement–” I said.
Jinx let out an amused snort.
“At least,” I continued.
Sanderson looked at me for several moments, face expressionless. A centuries-old statue displays more emotion than he does when he gets like that. I hate it.
I let out a defeated sigh. “Fine. Lately I’ve been getting only a couple hours rest a day.”
“A couple?” Jinx said.
This time, I punched him on the arm as hard as I could. Sanderson didn’t chastise me. He probably wished he could’ve done it himself. Jinx has that effect on people.
“And if you function so well with so little rest,” Jinx said, smirking, “then why do you need to take so many hits of rev a day?”
If we hadn’t been in Sanderson’s office, I’d have slammed the butt of my trancer against the side of Jinx’s head. As it was, all I could do was glare at him – which, of course, only made his smirk wider. Sanderson scowled at me, but he didn’t follow up on Jinx’s remark, and I thanked the First Dreamer for small mercies.
“An Ideator needs a minimum of five hours of rest per day, Ms Hawthorne. And yes, I realize that your duties as an officer often require you to keep irregular hours. Nevertheless, you do no one any good, least of all yourself, if you don’t keep yourself sharp. Am I clear?”
I wanted to argue more, but I knew it would only make things worse. “Yes, sir.”
Sanderson narrowed his eyes, as if he were attempting to gauge my sincerity. Finally, he nodded, and then looked at Jinx. “I’m charging you with the responsibility of making certain she gets at least five hours of rest per day. Five uninterrupted hours.”
Jinx smiled at me. “I could always clonk her over the head with Cuthbert Junior a few times. That should put you down and keep you down for a good long while.”
He was kidding. I hoped.
“I promise I’ll get some rest as soon as I can, but you need every officer you can get to help track down Quietus. Not only do we need to prevent further murders, we need to find out if he has some link to the Incursion that took place.”
“While I’m an admitted aficionado of random acts of chaos, it does seem awfully coincidental that an Incursion would take place as we were trying to capture Quietus,” Jinx said.
“Are you suggesting Quietus somehow caused the Incursion?” Sanderson said. “Impossible! Incursions are a natural phenomenon.” He thought for a moment. “And even if an individual could initiate an Incursion on his or her own, according to your report, Quietus was also attacked by the mutated sculpture.”
Jinx shrugged. “Sometimes a prank backfires on you. Not that it’s ever happened to me,” he hastened to add.
I smirked but didn’t reply.
“Rest assured, the Shadow Watch intends to make recapturing Quietus its highest priority.”
“Without us,” I said.
Sanderson stood and walked from behind his desk. He clasped his hands behind his back and paced around the office once more as he spoke.
“Do you remember when we recruited you, Audra?”
Back to first names. Not a good sign. “Sure. It’s not the kind of thing a girl forgets.”
“The Nightclad Council wasn’t convinced that you and Jinx would make suitable officers. Jinx for obvious reasons…”
Jinx stuck his tongue out at Sanderson. It transformed into a hissing serpent that glared at our boss before slithering back into Jinx’s mouth.
“And you, Audra, because you were so young.” He stopped pacing and turned to regard me. “And more importantly because you were so afraid. Of everything, but most especially the Incubus you created.”
I thought Jinx might make a smartass remark at that, but he said nothing. He just looked at me without expression, his thoughts unreadable.
“That was a long time ago,” I said, my tone harsher than I intended. Sanderson let it pass without comment.
“There’s a reason all officers work in pairs comprised of an Ideator and his or her Incubus. Since the Shadow Watch is charged with protecting Earth as well as Nod, it only makes sense for our teams to represent both realms. But much more important is the bond that Ideator and Incubus share. When the bond is strong and healthy, it allows the pair to function as a highly effective team. And if the bond is exceptional, the officers can at times perform as a single individual, with shared thoughts, emotions, and reactions.” He sighed. “I don’t think I’m delivering any shocking news by telling you that your bond is far from that strong.”
He returned to his desk and sat once more.
“It took some doing to convince the Council to grant the two of you full active status as officers, but I did so, for I believed you had the potential to be one of the best teams the Shadow Watch has ever seen. But after tonight…” He trailed off and shook his head.
“So,” I said, trying not to sound as bitter as I felt, “who’s going to take the lead on the hunt for Quietus?”
Sanderson hesitated before answering. “I’m considering a number of officers…”
He was interrupted by a knock on the door. Before he could answer, it opened, and a handsome man in his early thirties poked his head in. He had chestnut-brown hair, a neatly trimmed beard, and what some women refer to as puppy-dog eyes. He was smiling, but when he laid eyes on Jinx and me, his smile faded.
“I’m sorry to interrupt. When Dispatch said you wanted to see us, we thought…”
Sanderson’s features remained composed, but a slight chill crept into his voice, indicating his annoyance. “That’s all right. Come in.”
The man pushed the door open wider and slipped inside. He was followed by a stunningly beautiful woman who stood a head taller than him. She had long black hair, and her flawless skin was the color of roasted almonds. If you watched her long enough, you’d notice that the ends of her hair waved back and forth, as if stirred by a gentle breeze that only she could feel. Her eyes were completely black – no irises, no whites – but instead of making her look alien or frightening, those eyes somehow accentuated her beauty. She seemed ageless and eternal, like an ancient marble statue brought to life.
They both wore the nondescript gray suit that served as the Shadow Watch’s official uniform. But on them the suits looked like haute couture. Jinx and I looked as if we shopped at discount clothing stores. Of course, Jinx looked even worse, considering how shredded his clothes had gotten during his battle with the demon dog.
“I should’ve known,” I muttered.
Damon Chambers and Eklips were two of the most highly regarded senior officers in the Shadow Watch. They were based in New York, although they went anywhere in the world their duties took them. Chicago’s my hometown, and as far as I’m concerned,
it’s the greatest city on Earth. But one of its nicknames is the Second City. I bet you can guess which city considers itself number one. So, like a lot of Chicagoans, I grew up with a bit of a chip on my shoulder when it comes to the Big Apple.
But that’s not why I hated Chambers and Eklips. They were professional, successful, and so good-looking, they could both be models or movie stars. But even all that didn’t bug me – at least, not too much. What bothered me about them was how damn nice they were. How modest. How “Oh no, darling! It’s not about us; it’s about the team!” they were. They were stuck-up phonies pretending they didn’t care about being the most beloved officers in the Shadow Watch. So beloved, in fact, that even rogue Incubi admired them. I once saw one ask for their autographs as they were hauling him in.
But they didn’t fool me or Jinx. We knew who they really were, and what’s more, they knew we knew. Which made it all the more galling that they’d been assigned to clean up our mess.
“Audra!” Damon said, smiling. “It’s been a while. How are you? Well, I hope.” He stepped forward and offered his hand for me to shake.
I stared at his hand as if poisonous thorns protruded from the flesh. He lowered his hand, but his smile didn’t falter.
Jinx smiled at him, but instead of teeth his mouth was now filled with rows of rusty nails. Damon’s eyes narrowed, but he maintained his smile at full wattage. He nodded. “Jinx,” he said, his tone decidedly less warm than when he’d greeted me.
He turned his attention back to me. “By the way, excellent work in taking down that gang of melatonin smugglers last month. Top-notch work!”
Eklips crossed silently to her partner’s side, her feet seeming not to touch the floor. She never made a sound when she moved, a quality I had never gotten used to. She reached up and gently placed her hand on Damon’s shoulder, and I did my best not to grimace.
Romantic and physical relationships between human and Incubi – assuming the latter possess the proper anatomy – although rare, are accepted by the majority of Nod’s citizens and institutions, including the Shadow Watch. But relationships between Ideators and the Incubi they create are, if not forbidden, mostly frowned upon. Ideators and their Incubi aren’t linked genetically, of course, so our relationship isn’t precisely that of parent and child, but in a metaphysical sense at least, it’s close enough. So to most of us, myself included, sex between Ideators and their Incubi comes uncomfortably close to incest.
And many Incubi are reluctant to have sex with humans for another reason. Centuries past, some Ideators considered themselves magicians and viewed the Incubi they created as slaves to do with as they pleased. And some Incubi saw themselves as powerful demons who could whatever they wished to their creators. Rape on both sides was often the result, and the word incubus – which originally came from one of the Latin words for nightmare – came to be associated with a demonic sexual predator, primarily a male. Somewhere along the line, someone eventually coined the word succubus for the female variety of these “demons”, although as far as I know, no one in Nod uses it.
So, because some of their ancestors had been ill-used by humans, and vice versa, most Incubi prefer to stick to their own kind when it comes to carnal pleasure. Obviously, Eklips was of a different mind on the subject. The issue has never come up between Jinx and me, and to be honest, the thought makes me more than a little ill.
“I’m surprised you two were able to get here so fast,” I said to Eklips, baring my teeth at her in an insincere smile. “I figured you’d be too busy attending the opening of a new Broadway show, or maybe checking out a quaint new art gallery.”
Eklips didn’t smile back at me. She never smiled, not in public, anyway. I wondered if she ever smiled at Damon when they were alone.
“Rumor is that you two had Quietus in custody but let him escape? Is that true?” Her voice was like two swaths of black velvet being rubbed together. I’d never heard her raise her voice above a near whisper, even when she was furious. In some ways, that’s scarier than anything Jinx does. Classier, too.
Jinx ground his nail-teeth together, and his eyes began to glow red. Not a good sign. Normally, I would’ve tried to defuse the situation. Having your psychotic clown partner go full-tilt horror movie in your boss’s office doesn’t make for a positive performance review. But these two always pissed me off – especially Eklips – and so I decided to sit back in my chair and watch the fun.
But before Jinx could do anything interesting, Sanderson laid his right arm atop his desk, palm up, and pulled his jacket and sleeve cuffs back with his left hand. He wore a wisper around his wrist, but just below that was a tattoo of a closed eye. The rest of us in the room with Sanderson stopped talking – for that matter, we stopped breathing – and focused on the eye tattoo. I braced myself for the eye to open, knowing that very bad things would happen if it did. But after several moments passed quietly, Sanderson pulled his sleeve back down. He then looked at Jinx – whose eyes were no longer glowing – and without a hint of emotion spoke a single word.
“Dismissed.”
“It wouldn’t be so bad if it was anyone else but those two,” I said.
Jinx and I were walking down Chimera Street, away from the Rookery. The building is made of black brick and is shaped like a turreted tower. In other words, like the chess piece called the rook – get it? I’ve heard rumors that the building existed before the Earth game was invented, and the chess piece was modeled after the Noddian counterpart. I don’t know if it’s true, but it wouldn’t surprise me. A high wrought iron fence topped with wickedly sharp spikes surrounds the Rookery, protecting it in ways mundane, technological, and – for lack of a better word – mystical. There are only two entrances, and there are guards posted there at all times, to supplement the Rookery’s other defenses.
I was seriously pissed off at how our meeting with Sanderson had gone. I glanced up and saw Espial gazing down upon us from the Canopy above. Irritated, I raised my hand high and gave the enigmatic orb the finger.
“If we’re lucky, Quietus will kill Damon and Eklips before they even know he’s there,” Jinx said.
I should’ve chastised Jinx for saying something so nasty, but at the moment, I felt the same way.
Jinx pulled three shrunken heads from one of his pockets and began juggling them as we walked.
“What next, Mommy?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I assume you’re going to disregard Sanderson’s orders. You usually do. So where do you want to go? Who do you want to – as they say in old-fashioned gangster movies – lean on? Or to put it more bluntly, whose skull do you want to bash in first?”
He tossed the heads faster as he spoke, and they began muttering tiny cries of discomfort. Jinx ignored them.
“Actually,” I said, “this time, I’m going to do what Sanderson says.”
Jinx stopped walking and turned to look at me with an exaggerated expression of surprise. The shrunken heads froze in the air and remained motionless, staring at me with similar expressions.
I stopped and turned to face Jinx. “Maybe Sanderson’s right. Maybe Quietus got away because I was off my game. Maybe some rest will do me good.”
Jinx frowned. He plucked the heads out of the air one by one and slipped them back into his pocket. Then he turned to face me once more.
“You know I’m not good at interpreting human emotions in my Night Aspect.” He paused. “Any emotions, really. So correct me if I’m wrong, but you seem kind of… down.”
Night Jinx rarely shows any awareness, let alone interest, in how I’m feeling, but when he does, it makes me uncomfortable.
“You think?” I said, a bit harder-edged than I intended. I faced forward and started walking again. “C’mon. I need you to find us a goddamned Door home.”
Jinx didn’t follow me at first, and I wondered if I’d hurt his feelings. But then I remembered he didn’t have any feelings to hurt.
A few seconds later, I heard the so
ft slap-slap of his overlarge shoes on the pavement as he followed after me.
We reentered Chicago through a Door in the outer wall of a bank close to Union Station, right next to an ATM. The instant I closed the Door, it began to fade, and I knew we’d made it back to Earth just before sunrise. I was glad. The last thing I wanted to do right then was be stuck in Nod until nightfall.
Already the streets were filled with cars, although not so many that traffic was congested. Handfuls of pedestrians made their way along the sidewalks, bleary-eyed and moving slowly, most of them carrying cups of takeout coffee.
I looked at Jinx. Although the sky was still tinged by night, it didn’t need to be full daylight for Incubi to change. All that mattered was that enough sleepers had awakened, weakening the connection between Earth’s dimension and the Maelstrom.
Unlike Doors, Incubi don’t vanish during the day. Instead, they become denatured, changing from their Night Aspect to their Day. It happens quickly, so fast, in fact, that the transformation is almost impossible to detect. One instant, Jinx was his regular sinister clown self, and the next, he looked like a normal human. Well, almost normal. His clothing remained shredded, thanks to the demon dog, but his gigantic clown shoes had shrunk to normal sneakers, and while his tie was still orange with blue dots, it was no longer as large, and the colors were more muted and less garish.
Most noticeable was his skin. The clown-white was gone, replaced by Caucasian-white, and while he remained bald, the skin around his eyes and mouth was flesh-colored, too. He even had a pair of eyebrows now, although they were thin and almost undetectable.
He looked down at his shredded clothes with disgust. “I wish my other Aspect took greater care of our wardrobe.” He looked to me, and his gaze filled with concern. “Are you all right, Audra? That meeting was less than pleasant, to put it mildly. Bad enough that Sanderson was dressing us down, but then to have Damon and Eklips walk in like that… I don’t for a moment believe their arrival was an accident. More likely they wanted to rub our noses in the fact they were assigned to be lead officers on the case.”
