Shadow Touch

by Marjorie M. Liu

  “Listen. I won’t pretend to understand what you felt inside that murderer’s head, but I know you. There’s never going to be a later. Every case is the most important, and you are constitutionally incapable of irresponsibility. If someone doesn’t make you take a break, you’ll go until you drop. I’m not going to let that happen.”

  “I am so grateful you care.”

  Dean shot him a dirty look. Artur glanced away, out the window. In truth, he did need the rest, a slice of home where he could shut out the world and all its waiting misery. Just a little peace, a little silence for his aching brain.

  But not now. Not with Marilyn still weeping inside his tired head.

  They pulled up to Artur’s home, an old brick town house set off the road by a winding stone path. Dean tapped the steering wheel. Artur sat there, waiting.

  “You can get the hell out of the car now,” Dean finally said. “Don’t make me push you.”

  “Why not? You enjoy it so much.”

  Dean opened his mouth; Artur cut him off with a wave of his gloved hands. “Fine, fine. I am getting out of the car. I will go into my home like a good little boy and take a sleep. Happy?”

  “You’d better stay there,” Dean warned.

  “Yes, my matushka.”

  “Right. Thank God I’m not really your mother.”

  Artur did not bother telling Dean that he would probably make a better mother than his own. There was already enough pity in the air tonight.

  Artur got out of the car. Maybe he would take a nap—just an hour or two—and then head back to the office. Dean would probably be there too, along with the others from their particular branch. No one slept when there was a case to solve, and there were always cases of varying complexity and urgency. Artur stood in the street until Dean pulled away. He watched the tail-lights disappear at the intersection.

  Uneasiness spread through his heart; even though he planned on returning to work, it felt like a mistake letting Dean leave without him. Irresponsible. Marilyn still sobbed.

  His discomfort grew more intense as he walked up the narrow path to his home. The air smelled like his neighbor’s petunias, fresh and slightly bitter.

  Artur took off his gloves and touched the front door. He traced the wood around the keyhole, the brass knob. Nothing. Just the lingering echo of his soul. Slightly comforted, he entered his home. Shut the door on petunias and night shadows. Kicked off his shoes.

  The town house was large, because Artur had never owned anything large that was all his own, and he had promised himself at a young age that if he ever had the opportunity to have a place of his own, it would be spacious and comfortable and clean. His home also had windows, many windows of many different sizes, because he had spent much of his life trapped in dark rooms, and now to be without light, some vision of the world beyond four walls, felt like punishment, a sin. It did not matter that windows were inherently dangerous. He did not care.

  The shades were open. Artur left them that way. He did not turn on any of the stained-glass lamps scattered delicately about the room like cold flowers. He walked through his home in near darkness: ritual, an old habit dying hard. At night, light within meant pulling down the shades to make himself less a target. He was too tired for that now. Too weary to indulge his paranoia.

  You should not be too tired. A little safety is worth more than “weariness.

  Artur dropped his gloves on the dining table, its surface reflecting the gleam of a streetlight outside his home. He ran his fingers against the glossy surface, savoring the smooth, cool wood, the slight oil of polish. Like a blind man, seeing precious details with his hands—except here, now, nothing stirred in him but the familiarity of his own mind. Artur took off his jacket and hung it from the back of his chair. He pulled off his socks. The hardwood floor felt good beneath his feet. Good and safe and familiar.

  Home was the only reliable place in his life. Everything around him had been in his possession long enough to have lost the taint of strangers. Every piece of furniture, every article of clothing, every spoon and fork and plate had been handled for long hours before he could touch them and feel only himself. Even his walls were tuned only to his presence.

  Artur never allowed guests. He did not like surprises in his home. Surprises were kept for work, the world beyond his windows and doors. Home was supposed to be predictable. Sweetly, wonderfully predictable.

  He went into the kitchen to get a drink. The answering machine blinked at him. One message.

  That was very odd. Artur did not usually get messages. His number was unlisted, and all his friends at the agency knew he preferred calls to his cell phone. No one ever called his home. In six years he could count the times on one hand. He could not imagine who this might be.

  Still, he had an answering machine for a reason. He hit the button. Took a step back and opened the dishwasher for a clean glass. The machine whirred, spit out a time, and then—

  A woman’s voice prattled into the quiet air of his home. Soft and Russian and oh, so familiar. Artur almost dropped his glass.

  Tatyana. Tatyana Dmitriyevna. Calling him.

  He was so bewildered by the sound of her voice, so entirely stunned, he completely missed the message. He listened to it a second time, and still could not comprehend what she was saying to him. All he could think of was the impossibility of her call. Hearing her voice was almost as ridiculous as hearing his mother’s.

  Artur replayed the message a third time. He listened hard, gripping the edge of the counter and closing his eyes. The connection she had called on was bad; the clarity of her words wavered.

  “Hello, Artur. Yes, this is me. Do not get your hopes up. I am not calling for pleasantries. I have come into money now, so you can stop sending your checks. I do not need you anymore. No more charity. You wonder why, yes? Maybe I marry rich old bastard? Ha! What a joke. No, some men came asking questions about you. They wanted to know everything. Everything, Artur. They paid me very well for the information. I am sure you understand. I did not call to warn you about these men. I just do not want your money anymore. Do not call me back.”

  Do not call me back. As if he would dare. He listened to the message again, concentrating on the part where she talked about men coming to speak with her. Men who had asked specifically about him. Men who had enough wealth to allow Tatyana a comfortable, independent life.

  That would require a lot of money. Artur knew Tatyana very well; she had expensive tastes. She might hate him—and rightly so—but she still loved his cash. For her to tell him to stop sending any, after more than six years of monthly payments …

  This is not good.

  Not good, because Tatyana was one of the few people outside the agency who knew about his gift. She was his first love, his first angel; he had given her everything, trusting her with his most precious secrets. Long before Dirk & Steele had approached him, Artur had relied on Tatyana as his shining anchor, his little star.

  Yes, well. Great love could turn into an even greater hate. He knew that now. Had learned his lesson very well.

  Of course she betrayed you. How could you expect anything less? You did, after all, ruin her life.

  But who had done the asking? Who would want to know about him? He could not imagine any of his old Russian bosses still holding an interest—not after all this time. Nor did he believe that anyone from the Mafia in Moscow would pay for information they could simply take. Money saved was money earned. A large stick and steel knuckles were the same as cash in the bank.

  I must speak with Roland. If I have been compromised, then the agency is not far behind.

  A nightmare possibility. Artur had been given so little in his life—so very little. He knew the price of not protecting those he cared about. Friends were all he had. The men and women of Dirk & Steele were his family. Artur picked up his phone and began dialing Roland.

  He had no warning—no memories in his floor, no strangers’ fierce echoes. He heard a puff of air, and something sha
rp pierced his back.

  Artur whirled. He glimpsed a slim figure in the shadows of the hall: a man with dark hair and a familiar face. Too familiar. In Artur’s head, Marilyn began screaming again.

  Artur’s legs gave out. Simple and dead, as though his limbs were no longer connected to his brain. He crashed to the floor, thinking, No, this is impossible; the others are in danger …

  He watched the serial killer move close, a dart gun in his hands. He said, “Go to sleep, Mr. Loginov.”

  Artur tried not to. He tried to fight.

  Darkness found him.

  Chapter Two

  It is the endless sleep. Endless and undying, the perfect nothing. Torture, is it not? I could trap you here. I could keep you here, if you do not obey …

  Artur opened his eyes. The voice lingered, fading slowly like the last tendril of a hard dream. He did not know how long those words had filled his head, but it felt like a lifetime. Endless and undying.

  Warm shadows surrounded Artur, holding him softly beneath a gold-embroidered crimson coverlet. A small lamp burned on the bedside table, real flame flickering inside shimmering antique glass. A gentle light, easy on his eyes. Artur lay very still, his gaze wandering over the large room. He studied the red cloth–paneled walls, which displayed a gilt-edged diamond-and-floral pattern. Drapes of a similar design hung from the tall bedposts. He smelled wood polish and old cigarettes, the scent made strong by the stuffy air.

  He had no idea where he was, except that the room looked like it had been decorated with the malignant focus of an elderly woman with absolutely no taste.

  The room did not look like a prison. Despite—or because of—the overdone decoration, it reminded Artur of the old salons his Russian bosses had frequented; antique styles of wealth that appealed to Mafia lords seeking illusions of class and dignity for their business dealings. Artur had never liked those places, although the hypocrisy associated with their use bothered him more than the strain on his eyes.

  You were just muscle, a gun for hire. What did you know about hypocrisy? You were pretending, just like them. Pretending to be something more important than a runaway, an orphan, a freak. You lived your life as an illusion.

  Artur tilted his head so that his cheek touched the satin pillow. The image of a woman came to him, but the echo of her thoughts was dull, so thick and slow he could not read anything useful. Her name was Greta. She was young, and had been trained for a long time in simple menial tasks. She never left the building Artur was in. She did not know where she was. She spoke English, but sometimes she heard words around her that were different. Incomprehensible. She was not abused, though. That was all that mattered to her.

  His gloves were on. His gloves, and not some new pair. He could tell by the feel and stretch of the leather, the familiar comfort of his own echo. That he wore his gloves did not seem right, and Artur remembered he had removed them inside his home, laid them down on the table.

  Artur took off a glove and held it. He felt nothing. Not a trace of the man who had attacked him in his home, and then dressed his hands.

  Brown hair, green eyes. There was no mistaking the man’s identity. This was the same man who had murdered Marilyn and others—perhaps many others—and had incapacitated Artur in a move as simple as breathing. The serial killer had come looking for him with a purpose. With knowledge. Someone had sent him to do a job, and that job was Artur.

  He had one more task to complete. One more task before disappearing. All that death, leading up to … me.

  “Bozhe moy,” Artur murmured, stunned. Horrified. My God. It makes no sense. Who “would do this? Who would hire a serial killer to kidnap a man? And why kidnap me? Why go to such lengths?

  Marilyn’s weeping turned accusatory; Artur wondered with dull shock if she and the two other women had been some kind of payment. If they had died for a man they did not know. The thought alone was almost enough to make him want to die. Artur knew he had enemies, but none of them were so subtle, so motivated. A bullet would be good enough. A bullet would be just fine. But not this. No one went to so much trouble for a man whose only fate was a quick grave. Not for any man, ever.

  So. Someone wanted him alive. Someone wanted to use him. Someone who had gone through the difficulty of hunting down his past, of researching his movements, his habits, his home. Someone who had large sums of money and almost no ethics. Someone powerful enough to rein in a serial killer.

  Right. He was in a lot of trouble.

  Artur carefully pushed away the covers. His head hurt—a dull throb that radiated from the base of his skull into his eyes. He tried ignoring the pain, the weakness in his limbs. He gazed down at his body. The rest of his clothing seemed intact. No visible injuries. No guns, either. He had been plucked from his home like a doll. He removed his other glove and placed both in his pockets.

  He slid off the bed. His shoes—someone had thought of that, too—sank into the thick red shag carpet. There was a door in front of him, richly carved in the same diamond pattern of the wall. Artur began walking toward it, struggling to stay upright. The ache in his head was excruciating. He wondered what kind of sedative had been used. He wondered, too, what kind of man could sneak up on him in his own home, with his feet naked and so sensitive to the lingering echo of others.

  “The door is locked,” said a low voice.

  Artur spun—too fast, too hard; he was too used to being graceful on his feet. Pain flared. His knees buckled. He staggered, clutching the bedpost for support. Humiliating weakness.

  At first he did not see anyone. Silence, the quiet dark. And then he caught movement on the other side of the large room, deep within an alcove made of drapes and woodwork. Shadows shifted, like a ghost unfolding its limbs. A thin, pale face floated free. Artur saw a skullcap of blond hair, an impossibly slender body clad in a fitted gray suit.

  “Greetings,” said the woman. Her voice was melodically quiet. She looked unarmed.

  Artur straightened slowly, gathering enough strength to step away from the bed. A stupid mistake to have assumed he was alone. He wondered what else he had missed about his room, which was filled with many hiding places: voluminous drapes, a large wardrobe, even the space beneath the bed.

  The woman in front of him stood quite still, cold and gray as a spindly statue. Artur had trouble focusing on her face; his headache seemed to radiate into his eyes, blinding him with quick, short bursts.

  “Who are you?” he asked, struggling to speak clearly.

  A thin smile touched the woman’s pale lips. “That is always the first question. I can think of so many others that would be more useful. More intelligent.”

  Artur briefly closed his eyes. “If you are looking for intelligence, you chose the wrong man to take from his home.”

  The smile widened. “Very nice. A Russian smart-ass. I like that.”

  “Surely I am not such a novelty.” Artur ran his hands over the end of the bed. The woman shook her head.

  “You are the perfect novelty. And really, don’t bother. You won’t discover anything about me or my associates in this room. Even my shoes are new. Quite impersonal. The only people who have been allowed here are those without any real connection to my life or organization. Your gift is useless.”

  “I could touch you,” Artur said, disturbed by the woman’s knowledge. Tatyana’s fault, probably. He had no doubt this woman was responsible for the men who had approached his former lover. He did not believe in coincidence. Nor did it matter that he already knew of Tatyana’s betrayal; to be faced with his secrets and have them used against him by clear enemies was profoundly unsettling.

  “Touch me?” She looked amused. “Oh, I’m sure. That, however, would be cheating. Some things must be earned the hard way, Mr. Loginov. Like the truth. Like certain … rewards.”

  “Rewards.” Artur narrowed his eyes. “Who are you? Who do you work for?”

  The woman tilted her head: a sharp motion, precise and measured. She reminded him of the serial kil
ler—that cold assessment, ruthless calculation hidden by the facade of human expression.

  “You may call me Ms. Graves,” she finally said. “I represent the Consortium.”

  “I have never heard of your organization,” Artur said, because there was something in her voice that suggested he should be familiar with the name. Unfortunately, she looked pleased with his response, which made Artur uneasy—and rather nauseous. He wanted to lie down. He felt as if someone were hammering a nail into the base of his skull.

  Graves said, “I’ve brought you here for a job. The Consortium hires men like you.”

  Artur said, “No.”

  “Really. That was a speedy decision. You’ve heard so little. I had no idea curiosity was such a rare commodity in the criminally reformed. Not to mention all the work that has gone into acquiring your services or making you comfortable in a familiar setting. Surely you can suffer us a moment.”

  No, he could not. Artur did not have time for patience, especially not for a woman who used serial killers to kidnap him from his home. He lunged toward her, hands outstretched for the truth. He took one step—

  —and found a gun pointed at his face. A fast draw; Artur never saw her move.

  She looked very calm. “I was told you are a patient man. Unemotional and calculating. I believe my source was wrong.”

  Tatjana. Artur struggled not to vomit. Moving so quickly had almost incapacitated him. “I am an opportunist. A survivor. Whoever you spoke with forgot to mention that, as well.”

  “No. I simply expected more self-control.” The woman gestured for Artur to sit on the bed. “Please, make yourself comfortable. You look ready to faint.”

  Artur remained standing. Graves sighed and sidled several steps left. She sat gracefully on the deep seat of a rich red velvet armchair. The entire room was beginning to remind Artur of a bleeding heart. Perhaps his own, if he was not careful.

  Graves propped her gun hand on her knee. Her aim never wavered.

  “Normally I take the time for pleasantries and explanations—time enough to ease a man into his required role—but you are different. You, Mr. Loginov, do not require ease or sweet words. You already know the truth, that you are not alone in this world. You are accustomed to using your gift in return for money. I like this about you. It makes my task easier.”