by M. R. Forbes
“Hoboken,” Frank said. “Great.” He was sarcastic. It suited him. “I guess I could use a little adjustment period. I woke up this morning and forgot my arms were free. I was just lying there like I was still bound to that damn bed.”
“Where were you living before you went to prison?”
“Manchester, New Hampshire.”
I couldn’t think of anything I wanted to know about Manchester, so I downed one of the cups of coffee instead.
“Anyway,” I said. “When we get back I’ll get in touch with my benefactor. He’ll want to know how things worked out. He’ll be especially interested in whatever Black is planning.”
“Mr. Red?” Frank asked.
“His name is Tarakona.”
“Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“It shouldn’t.”
Frank went back to eating while I finished off my coffee. The headache was slowly subsiding, reduced via caffeine to a more manageable pulse.
I was getting up to grab a refill when the shooting started.
8
Wtf???
Sadly, it wasn’t the first time I had been shot at out of the blue in a public place. This made it the second in less than a year, and as far as I was concerned it was becoming an uncomfortable habit better reserved for movies and their less than impressive sequels.
I dropped to my stomach completely by instinct, covering my head with my hands as plates and cups shattered around me, the bystanders screaming and running for the door, somehow not getting hit. It was bad business to attack a ghost in public. There were rules, and those rules were meant to be followed. Even Black had to abide by them, or risk looking like a fool in front of his almost-peers.
The bullets stopped coming a few seconds later. I heard an engine revving outside.
I looked back at Frank. He had been hit a couple of times and had popped a pair of pustules to grease the damage. Already the blood had stopped flowing, and the skin was closing over. He noticed me looking at him, and he got up, hurrying over to where I was staying prone.
“I’ll cover you,” he said.
I got up, using him as a shield while we hurried away from the dining room. We had only made it a few feet when the engine volume increased, and the cab of an eighteen-wheeler came booming through the wall and into the space.
The driver was hard to miss, and I wasn’t that surprised.
Amos always had been a bit of a dick about rules.
“They must have spotted the van,” I said, disgusted with myself for leaving it visible. I would have ditched it last night if I hadn’t needed the size to carry Frank around.
Amos threw the truck into park and turned his head, his eyes catching mine. I could see how pissed he still was in his expression. Maybe egging him on had been a mistake. He grabbed something from the seat next to him and aimed it, a twelve-gauge that he fired right through the passenger window. The buckshot peppered Frank’s back as he got between us, and he cursed at the stinging.
“Thanks for the save,” I said, grabbing the dice in my pocket.
I didn’t want to use them. Not on Amos. He was the only tie to Dannie I had left. I would if I had to.
“Yo, Baldie!” he said, climbing out of the rig. I kept moving toward the door.
There was no way he had come alone, was there?
“Hey, wait up a second,” he said, crossing the front of the truck.
I reached the exit to the lobby, where the clerks were calling the cops and the rest of the diners were cowering in the corners.
“Come on, Skeletor. What? You ain’t gonna face me like a man?”
I stopped moving. Not because I was into the macho bullshit. I just couldn’t walk without getting my two cents in. I was stupid like that.
“In public?” I said, turning around. Frank stood beside me, staring down the fat ghost.
Amos kept moving closer. He didn’t seem to be afraid of Frank, despite the trogre’s advantage in both size and strength.
“You were the one playing dirty last night. I didn’t hit any civvies.”
“It doesn’t matter. Black is going to be pissed at you.”
“Nah. We’ve got an understanding.” He glanced at Frank. “I see you still like hanging out with the puss-buckets more than your own kind, eh? Find any new elves to not be able to screw?”
“I see you’re still a racist asshole.”
He shrugged. “I ain’t racist. I’m right.”
“So what’s your play, Amos?” I asked. “Why come at me like this?”
“It seems you’ve got a new talent for disappearing. I didn’t know when I would get another chance.”
“I can take him out,” Frank said.
“Not yet,” I replied. “I’ve got the dice. I don’t want to use them on you.”
“I ain’t afraid of those things. Mr. Black gave me this.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small bone. “He said your dice won’t do shit to me while I have it. Same thing for that mask of yours.”
“Did he give you something to fight an ogre?” I asked.
“Nah. I don’t need his help for that.” He looked at Frank. “You want a piece of this, Kermit?”
Frank looked at me. I held my hands out in submission. “Just don’t kill him if you can avoid it. He’s a friend of mine.”
Frank made an ugly confused face and started toward Amos. I could hear sirens in the background, getting closer.
“And make it quick,” I said. “I’ll be in the van.”
Part of me wanted to watch the showdown. Part of me couldn’t stand the thought. Amos was an incredible ghost. He knew how to fight, and he was smarter than he looked. Still, he wasn’t going to take Frank one on one. There was no way.
I left the motel, hurrying out to the van. Surprisingly, it seemed Amos had come alone, putting a lot on the line to take his shot at me. A shot that seemed oddly half-hearted. He had managed to avoid hitting all of the diners in the restaurant through the wall, but he couldn’t hit me?
Or he didn’t want to?
It didn’t make a lot of sense, and I had a feeling it wasn’t as raw as it seemed. The cops were getting closer, and I wasn’t about to hang around to figure out what it was.
I climbed into the van, glancing back at my lockbox. There had been more than money and the spellbook inside. I had a few guns in there, too. Frank had put the twisted cover back on top, and looking through the crack it seemed everything was accounted for.
I started the engine, looking back toward the motel, and the out to the highway. Three police cars went by, on their way to the off-ramp.
“Come on, Frank,” I said.
He appeared a minute later. His new shirt was torn, and his lip was bleeding. He ran out to the van, opening the rear doors and climbing in.
“Did you kill him?” I asked.
“Fat guy is stronger than he looks,” Frank said. “No. We whaled on each other for a few seconds, and then I knocked him halfway across the floor. He got up and got out.”
The whole thing was strange. Very strange. In fact, everything had been off since the night before in a way that I couldn’t quite put my finger on, but that I knew was going to mean nothing but trouble for me.
I backed out of the spot and got us moving, pulling away from the motel right before law enforcement made their way in.
9
Dominoes
It took a few hours to ride down the secured corridor between the Boston burbs and Jersey, an unfortunate incident involving a feral that had breached the fencing and got hit by a car causing a bit of excitement on the side of the road. I was always wary of the Control APCs whenever I had to drive past them, knowing that they were managed by the Houses and typically contained at least one operative to report back on anything out of the ordinary.
Fortunately, we made it through without anyone taking notice, and by the time I unlocked the door to my place downtown I was feeling stronger than I had in weeks.
“Watch your head,” I said to
Frank. He ducked and turned his body to get past the door.
My apartment had once been the top half of an old warehouse and had fifteen-foot ceilings, which meant he was at least able to stand up straight. It hadn’t occurred to the architects or me that anything else should be raised to accommodate leathers. The new humans had their own tenements for that.
“I still don’t get what the deal was with that so-called friend of yours. He shows up, destroys the side of the motel, gets into a fight he can’t possibly win, and then leaves?”
“It isn’t like him,” I agreed. “I imagine Black put him up to it.”
“Why? What would he stand to gain?”
“Most of what the Houses do to people is psychological. You know they can crush you pretty much whenever, so you spend your life in fear of them. Maybe Black wanted to let me know he could still find me. Maybe he wanted me to have to go face-to-face with Amos. I doubt he thought I would have kept you around. I’m not known for my charming personality.”
“Glad I could help out. Start earning my keep, you know? It feels kind of good to be so strong, even if I am one ugly mofo.”
“You already need another new shirt.”
I took a visual inventory of the apartment, making sure nothing had moved while I was gone. A ghost could get in and out of a place like mine without breaking a sweat. The trick was to do it without disturbing anything. I scanned the heavy blackout drapes that hung closed ahead of the windows that made up the south wall before shifting my attention to a mostly unused kitchen, and then up to the small loft where I kept my Machine rig. I hated the thing, but with Prithi out of town it was a necessary evil to hop into the Machine from time to time to pick up work or get a bead on more of the meds.
“Nice place,” Frank said.
It was the nicest place I had been in since I left my wife and daughter, courtesy of the half of the hoard Tarakona had stuffed into the briefcase along with the ring and the spellbook. The other half had gone to Karen and Molly. Not that it mattered. If I needed more, I called Peter and asked for it, and it showed up in my account the next day. As far as Tarakona was concerned I was on retainer.
It would have seemed logical that not having to worry about money anymore had made my life easier. More money, more problems? Not quite. It did serve to free me up to worry more about everything else that was going wrong, even though so much had been going right. What can I say? Cancer had made me an absolute pessimist.
Frank lumbered over to my kitchen, grabbing the handle to the fridge and pulling it open. I didn’t have any moldy bread or anything disgusting in there. I didn’t have anything at all.
“Oh man. I’m hungry,” he said.
I took the box of meds from my pocket and tossed it to him. “I have a freezer over there,” I said. “You don’t want to see what’s in that one. Can you chill these for me?”
He caught the box in an open palm and shoved it into the fridge.
My cell began to ring.
My reflex was to wince. Only two people had my personal cell number, which meant it was either Peter or Prithi. As I reached into my pocket to grab it, I wondered if maybe it was Amos, Mr. Black, or Death. With my luck, it would be some other overpowered godlike being that wanted a piece of my soul. I had enough trouble with the demon that had already sunk its claws into me.
I looked at the screen and let out a sigh of relief.
“Hey, Prithi,” I said, answering the call.
“Hi, Conor,” she replied.
She had been much more bubbly since she had traded her parents for Myra, even losing some of that edge she had been getting from spending too much time with me.
“What’s up?”
“Can you meet me in the Machine in five? I’ve got a job lined up.”
“I just got home, and I’m not really in the mood to make another run already.”
“Was that a whine? Because it sounded like a whine to me. You chose this life.”
The job used to be about the money or the meds. I had both right now. That didn’t mean I would forever, and it was vital for a ghost to stay visible and relevant if they wanted to keep getting work. I glanced over at Frank. If the job was simple enough, it might be good to help him get his feet wet.
I almost choked on that thought. I couldn’t believe I was taking on a partner, temporary or not. After the run-in with Amos, my feeling that I was going to need him had only gotten stronger.
“Conor?” Prithi said, left hanging while I considered.
“Okay. I’ll see you in the Jungle in five. Tell Myra I said hello.”
“That’s awfully pleasant of you. Are you feeling okay?”
“Funny.”
I disconnected. Was I feeling okay? I noticed my hand holding the phone. Was it a little less gray than it had been yesterday?
“Hey Frank,” I said. “If you head outside and go down four blocks, there’s a small apartment complex there that was built for leathers. Across the street from it is a deli that you might like.” I dug around in my pocket until I found one of my payment cards. “You can use this for whatever you need.”
“Thanks, pal,” he said, coming over and taking it from me. “How much is on here?”
“Enough for you to live on for a few months if you decide to bolt. The account is anonymous and secured. You can walk with it and nobody, including me, can ever trace it back to you.”
He didn’t give it a second thought. “I’m not going anywhere. You did me a solid, and I kind of like you, even if I do think you’re a bit of a sick fuck. You want me to pick anything up for you?”
I was rarely hungry. I ate once in awhile, at totally random times whenever I had enough appetite to be bothered. “I’ll get something later.”
“Suit yourself.” He smiled a huge, toothy grin that almost made me laugh with how dopey it looked. “I’ll be back soon.”
I waited for him to leave before heading to the loft. I climbed the ladder and stood at the top, staring at the rig. I hated the Machine. I would always hate the Machine. That was why I had bought the cheapest unit I could find that was able to be modded for access to the Blackout. Even then, it had cost me nearly a hundred grand.
Some evils were necessary. This was one of them.
I flipped on the control monitor, entered a few passwords, and started the timer. Operating the machine solo meant you had to bring yourself out. Having been trapped there once already, having lost Dannie because of it, I didn’t take any chances.
I dropped into the plush leather seat and slipped the helmet over my head, feeling the surge of magic connect me to the system. I could hear Prithi’s voice in my ears, counting down the entry sequence. My heart started to race like it always did, the traumatic panic threatening to force me to abandon the rig. I clenched my teeth and held fast against it.
The world faded to black. The curtains came back up two seconds later.
I was in.
10
Never-neverland
I landed inside the Jungle, appearing in the center of a pair of men grinding to the heavy industrial music that blared from massive speakers hanging from the ceiling. They cursed in confusion as they were suddenly rubbing up against my avatar instead of one another, and I cursed and shoved them both, my mods sending them both tumbling away.
It was Prithi’s idea of a joke. I turned my head, looking for her Azeban persona. I didn’t spot her right away, so I headed for the bar, stepping around the other avatars on the dance floor. The music moved as I did, scratching out and rearranging to whatever it was the dancers closest to me preferred. I could only imagine what the top-down view of the scene looked like, with dozens of pairs all moving to a unique beat.
Sometimes the Machine could impress me.
I reached the bar, still adjusting to my sudden and complete health. Everyone was whole in the Machine if they chose to be. The only question was what kind of whole? I had found most of the ghosts that drummed up business here liked to prefix with “ass.”
“Jonesy,” I replied. “Have you seen Azeban?”
“Not in the last few hours. Are you supposed to meet him here?”
“Yeah.”
“Then he’ll be here. He always is.”
I nodded and turned away from the bar, scanning the room. None of the ghosts who were milling about the place would be in any skin that looked anything like their real-life self, which was the point of the whole thing. The Machine was generally anonymous, the Jungle even more so. Joining from a Blackout server was even more secure than that. It let me move around a little more freely than the world’s only necromancer would have been able to otherwise. Jonesy only recognized me because he was on the Blackout too, and even then only because my software allowed it.
“I heard you pulled one over on Mr. Black,” Jonesy said.
“You heard that already?” I asked, not looking at him.
“News travels fast around here.”
I knew that it did. What I was wondering was who had sourced the information? He would never tell me.
“He had something I wanted. You know how it is.”
He laughed. “There isn’t another ghost alive who would even think of pulling a job like that, not for all the money and power a House could give. And you did it solo.”
Was he trying to butter me up?
“What’s your angle?”
“No angle, Baron. I see a star on the rise, I want to hitch a ride. It’s simple economics.”
“I’m a star that’s going to burn out any day now,” I said.
“Bullshit. How long have you been a necro again?”
I wouldn’t have continued the conversation with anyone else. Jonesy was one of the few people I trusted, mainly because he distrusted everyone else as much as I did. Plus, it was his job to keep things on the down low.
