by Jake Bible
Time to ask questions and not believe the answers. Although, having a lie-sniffing vampire in the One Guy’s lap did make me slightly more confident we’d get to the truth eventually. Maybe.
“Can I get you more?” Maaike asked, taking my empty plate. I must have looked surprised. “You keep talking. I so want to hear where this goes.”
“Yeah. Thanks,” I said.
Maaike went and filled my plate while I glared at the One Guy.
“Leonard? Answer the question,” I said.
“Me. You were delivering me,” he said.
“Lie,” Diane said and licked his pock-marked cheek with a blood red, pointy tongue. “Delish.”
“How many times should I ask him before we get serious?” I asked Harper.
“I’m already very fucking serious,” Harper snarled as a blue haze drifted over her broken arm.
“No more times then,” I said and began to let a little Dim swirl in my palm. Maaike set my plate on the bar and sat down next to me. “Thanks.”
“My pleasure,” she said and patted me on the thigh.
“Leonard?” I said. “We are going to have to have the truth right now. Otherwise Diane gets to start nibbling on your neck.”
“That sounds hot,” Lassa said from the end of the bar where he was drinking a huge tumbler of rum and coke. He saw the looks we gave him. “I mean, uh, disgusting. Yuck.”
Diane gave him an exaggerated wink. He returned it.
“Leonard?” I said one last time.
“I want assurances,” he said. “I tell you what I know and you let me live.” He glanced at Diane. “Real living, not an undead existence.”
“Hey, don’t knock the undead,” Lassa said then took a sip and ahhh’d. “One of our business partners is undead and she is the loveliest woman in all the dimensions. Classy.”
“Am I classy?” Diane asked.
“You, my dear, are the opposite of classy in the best possible ways,” Lassa replied.
“God, you two make me sick,” the One Guy said, faking a retching noise. “Chase? An assurance?”
“No,” I said. “Your life depends on how convincing you can be. No deals, no contracts, no plans, no conniving bullshit that allows you to wiggle out of that chair.”
“You can wiggle. I won’t mind,” Diane said and licked him again. “Mmmm.”
“Diane. Please,” Maaike said, causing Diane to pout.
Vampires . . .
“Here, let me help you get started,” I said to the One Guy. “The real reason we’re going to DC is . . .”
The One Guy struggled internally. I could see it all over his ugly face.
“Harper,” he hissed at the room, his head turning back and forth like it caused him actual discomfort to say. “She was the real delivery.”
“Because she is Stolen,” I said.
“Because she is Stolen,” the One Guy agreed. “We had been using kobold parts to wage our little cross-continental conflict, but the kobold dimension turned out to be a considerably stronger adversary than any of us had bargained for.”
“You kill their royalty and a people tend to get upset, Leonard,” I said. “That’s not rocket science, pal.”
“Yes, well, the last few parts became worth more than a Swiss bank account’s contents,” the One Guy said. “I was scrambling for new parts, as you know from Chappy’s unfortunate involvement. Until an idea hit me.”
“You suddenly realized you had premium parts right there in Asheville,” I said. “Harper parts.”
The One Guy shrugged.
“None of the other CIs had a Stolen available to them?” I asked.
“Not that I’m aware of. Which made Harper’s head a premium. I was able to make a deal with a broker. Sell her a Stolen and I’d be set for life. Hell, I’d be set into the afterlife.”
“You’re already rich. You made a fortune off the suffering of Asheville and the area.”
“A fortune that the DEX wasn’t going to let me keep. I go into protective custody and I forfeit everything. Harper was my bargaining chip so that when I did disappear from the system, I’d still be living the lifestyle I’d grown accustomed to.”
There was truth in there. Enough to convince Diane. At that moment I believed every word that the One Guy said. The deal for Harper and the using the DEX to disappear. Except he was lying, even if Diane couldn’t smell the lie. He was using the truth to hide his plan.
I needed to keep him talking and see where he slipped up.
“Which part of the DEX?” I asked. “Maaike says they’re at war with themselves, so which side do you work for? Which side is going to put you into witness protection or whatever it is the DEX does?”
The One Guy laughed. It was forced. It was overly dramatic. It was bullshit. And it went on for a while.
“Point made,” Maaike said. “What’s so funny, asshole?”
“It’s nice to know that while you fools each have a little peek through the window, I’m the only one here with a full view.” He cleared his throat and smiled at Diane. “No need to get licky, sweetheart. I’m about to spill it all.” The One Guy cleared his throat again. “Full disclosure for a safe return to Asheville.”
“If it’s worth it,” I replied.
“No, Chase! I want to return safe and sound. Once we get there then we can hash out our . . . problems with each other. Until then, and in exchange for what I know, you keep me safe as a goddamn little newborn baby.”
“What do you mean by return to Asheville?” Harper asked.
“What?” the One Guy replied. That rattled him.
“Not DC? You don’t want us to deliver you to the safety of DC?” Harper asked. She had her predator voice on, which was different than her killer voice. She was hunting something in him. “Why go back to Asheville?”
“That’s where I live,” he said.
“Truth in a lie,” Diane said.
“Leonard?” I said as I finished off the second plate of food.
I had no idea what magic Lassa and Diane had been cooking with, but it was filling me up. Two plates should not have filled me up that fast. Satiety felt good. I stopped fiddling with the Dim and made a full rod.
“Diane? You’ll want to move,” I said.
Diane moved as I threw the Dim rod, impaling the One Guy through his left shoulder.
“That was beautiful,” Maaike said.
The One Guy cried out and went to yank the rod free, but I flicked my fingers and it dissipated into nothingness. He began talking.
“My deal with Ducheré only works for me if I deliver the Stolen to the broker in DC. No Harper, so no point in making the deal.”
“Because you’d be poor?” I laughed. “Leonard, we both know what poor is. I’m sure the DEX wouldn’t let you starve to death. They’d provide.”
“There might be more to it than that.”
“I’m sure there is. So . . . ?”
“Ducheré was to take care of the rest of the CIs, none of which was part of her faction, and I’d get a singular place amongst the DEX hierarchy. The last CI. High value asset. Good gig. Gives Ducheré leverage against the other faction and gives me leverage over Ducheré. But, so what? That was only part of my deal. Guess what happens when I show up without the Stolen to hand over to the broker?”
He scrunched up his face and continued. “Chase, do you remember that friend of Nikolai’s? The one that had a thing for little boys. You remember what Nikolai did to him when everyone found out?”
“I couldn’t eat hot dogs for a year after that,” I said. “Or sausages or any meat that resembled intestines.”
“I would pray for that kind of death. Pray for it with all my soul. The DEX are a bunch of idiotic bureaucrats, but they are entrench
ed in their bureaucratic idiocy.” He looked around at us all. “Every single one of you has overestimated them. As it is with everything in Washington, there are much larger powers at work behind them. Behind both factions. Power that won’t let me back out of a deal.”
“If they are so powerful then why didn’t they take me?” Harper asked. “Not that it would be easy for them, but if they’d come full force it would have been hard for me to stop them.”
“Two reasons,” he said. “One being Chase. No one understands what he does. Healthy dose of caution with a power like that keeps many people alive. Black Box Inc. drove Daphne into hiding and survived a deal with Lord Beelzebub. I kept saying it was dumb luck, since I know Chase, but Ducheré and her puppet masters are scared.”
“The luck wasn’t dumb,” Lassa said. “It was smart luck.”
“Not helping,” I responded.
“Sorry, dude.”
“The second reason was the Grand Hex,” the One Guy continued as if Lassa hadn’t spoken. “You think that shit is only there so tourists and wanderers forget what they saw when they visit vortex points? Jesus, how naïve are you? The Grand Hexes are in place to protect the extradimensional beings from humans as much as anything else. Stolen are a strange category, straddling the line, but in the end, they are as protected by the Grand Hexes as any other being.”
“Ducheré needed me occupied and Harper willing to leave Asheville,” I said. “She pissed me off so much that I took a job protecting you because that seemed like the smart thing to do.”
“Only needed a little nudge from me,” the One Guy replied.
“Now you want to go back because that Grand Hex that protects Harper and other extradimensional beings can help protect you. That it, Leonard?”
He barely shrugged. I stood up and walked towards his chair. The Dim began to swirl from my palms. Then the swirling turned into tiny tornadoes.
“There’s more. I know it. I know you,” I said, letting the anger build inside me. “You have an angle. This wasn’t only about you getting to DC for a payoff and a new life. This wasn’t only about delivering me and Harper. Too many variables, Leonard. You hate variables unless you have a backup plan in place. What’s the backup plan? What’s your profit off all of this other than straight-up profit?”
“Maaike?” Diane asked, looking alarmed as I stalked to the One Guy.
“You might want to move,” Maaike said to Diane.
Diane moved out of my way. Fast. Leaving only the One Guy.
“I let you hire me,” I snarled as I closed on the son of a bitch. “It was so easy. I thought I was screwing the DEX and I was the one being screwed. But that is only a bonus for you. What’s really going on?”
The tumult of Dim was like a heavy cloud around me, parting as I took a step closer and closer. I no longer saw the bar. I no longer saw anything except an irised focus on the One Guy.
“I put my friends’ lives in jeopardy. I did that. And I knew better. I’ve always known better. You want to go back to Asheville? You tell me everything or you go back in a fucking box is where you go! Not a Dim box, asshole, but a goddamn coffin!”
The Dim lashed out at the One Guy. And hit a wall.
It was a clear wall, a hex of some sort. And it was powerful. I felt energetic feedback rush through the Dim and into me. It stopped my breath and the black smoke disappeared as I fell to a knee.
“Goddamn . . .” I whispered.
“You really should have called me right away, Maaike,” a voice said from the bar’s doorway.
I glanced over there and thought I was going to see a woman. I did not see a woman. I saw a nightmare.
24.
THE NIGHTMARE was about five-foot-six and might have been an attractive middle-aged woman if it wasn’t for the mass of green hair-like tentacles that hung from every inch of her and ended in barbed tips.
She had a handsome face that was covered in snake scales. Her forked tongue flicked out in my direction and she smiled.
“Defiler of dimensions and the One Guy under my roof at the same time,” the woman said. “I won the lottery.”
“Violete, I was going to call you,” Maaike said. She wasn’t afraid, but she didn’t have the same confidence she’d had a minute before. “We were interrogating the One Guy. I wanted the full story before I brought you in. Less of a trail that way.”
“I know, I know, that’s why I’m not angry,” Violete said as she crossed the room towards the bar, her eyes never leaving mine. “Except I walked in on what looked like an assassination, not an interrogation.”
“I was going to stop him if he went any further,” Maaike said.
“No, you weren’t,” I said as I got to my feet and turned to face Violete. Goddamn she was freaky looking. “Chase Lawter. Not the defiler of dimensions, thank you very fucking much. Chase or Lawter or both. You pick.”
“Chase,” Violete said and nodded. “I am Violete Coste.”
“Nice to meet you, Violete Coste,” I said. “You’re in charge of the Exiles?”
“Chase. No,” Harper said.
I glanced at her and she shook her head.
“Harper is trying to warn me to not make any jokes or be rude,” I said. “That head shake was her ‘don’t get us killed’ head shake. So, I ask this question with all respect intended: What are you, Violete Coste?”
“Jesus,” Harper muttered.
“Yes, do tell,” Lassa said. “I’m not usually into the crazy hair tentacles thing, but, ma’am, you are stunning to behold.”
God bless Lassa.
Violete smiled. A genuine, happy smile. She turned to look at Lassa and gave him a bow of her head then turned back to me. Her eyes held me for a second then strayed to the tables of food.
“Good god that’s a lot to eat,” she said. Eyes back on me. “I’m a peluda, Chase. I doubt you’ve heard of my kind. Only a few of us have ever slipped through the cracks throughout your history before the extradimensional happening. The ones that have slipped through have only appeared in your France. Once the vortex points arrived, my kind shut down our portals. My dimension wants nothing to do with any of the others, for convoluted reasons I refuse to get into.”
She held up a hand and several of her tentacles imitated the gesture.
“I was exiled centuries before that decision was made, so my dimension being closed off forever means nothing to me. Their loss, as I see it.”
“And the . . . this?” I asked, waving my hand in front of my body.
Violete’s tentacles stiffened and a thousand barbed darts shot out into the walls of the bar, miraculously missing everyone. By the look on Harper’s face, I quickly realized there was no miracle involved. The barbed darts hit exactly where Violete meant them to.
Her tentacles relaxed and smoothed out somewhat so they hugged her form tighter and created an almost armor-like appearance.
“Teddy?” Violete called out.
“Fucking Teddy. Little snitch,” Maaike muttered.
“Yes, miss?” Teddy replied as he came out from the corner he’d been hiding in.
“Please let the others outside know that all is well,” Violete said. “Tell them they can join us. Time to decide what direction this merry band of players goes in.”
“Violete, I don’t think”—Maaike started.
“No, that is very apparent,” Violete interrupted. “That’s why I’ll do the thinking for everyone present from this moment forward.”
Maaike looked at me and mouthed, “I’m sorry.”
Well, shit, that wasn’t good.
“Chase. You brought a mess to my door,” Violete continued. “A door I have worked very hard to keep shut since we don’t live with the luxury of a Grand Hex to magically make everything okey dokey. If my door is opened, and my people a
re discovered by the humans, then powers considerably worse than the DEX will come down on us. Hard. I came to Roanoke over two centuries ago. I helped build Roanoke. All of that could be taken from me in the blink of an eye. All because of you.”
“I brought them here,” Harper said. “I’m the one to blame.”
“Bullshit,” I said. “You guys put me in charge, so the buck stops on my ass.”
“Not a good picture,” Lassa said.
“Really?”
“Sorry.”
“You are both right,” Violete said, looking from me to Harper and back. “And both to blame. That’s why I’ll let you pick the one that decides your fate.”
“That’d be me,” I said. “I decide to put the One Guy in a Dim box and send him away. Then we head back to Asheville and no one speaks of this shit again. Good decision?”
“Very sound, but not the decision I meant,” Violete replied.
“I had a feeling,” I said and held out my hands. “So? What are we deciding?”
“Who fights one of theirs,” Harper said. “And that would be me.”
“No, I don’t think so,” Violete said. “As much fun as it would be to watch Harper Kyles, the Stolen exiled from the Fae, take on our best, I’m afraid Chase has a point. You have decided who leads you, so let him lead you.”
“By fighting one of your best?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Goddammit.” I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “This a to-the-death kind of fight?”
“Doesn’t have to be, but there is that risk. It wouldn’t be much of a test if I let you fight half-speed.”
“Three-quarter speed?”
“Chase . . .”
“Nope, we’re good,” I said. Another deep breath. Slowly out. “What are we testing exactly? I’d like to know the point of this fight before I fully commit.”
“You don’t have a choice, Chase.”
“Lady, I always have a choice. May not be a good choice; may not keep me alive; may be the worst choice ever in the history of goddamn choices, but I always have a choice.”
