by Graeme Smith
The shadow of an arm reached out, and a very not-shadowy iron rod smacked down on the old man’s head. He fell to the floor. The old woman with the iron bar in her fist sighed. “You know what a trans-temporal quantum irregularity is, Jack? No. Damned if I do, either. But much as I hate to admit it, the old bugger’s right. You can’t kill her, Jack. And you’re right too. Someone has to, if you’re going to stay alive. And you have to stay alive, Jack. You really do. So I’m going to tell you a story.” Outside the room, the Universe imploded. The old woman sighed again. “And then you’re going to forget I told you a damn thing, Jackie boy.”
Jack raised an eyebrow. “And who’s going to make me, old woman?
The old woman grinned. “Why, pretty much the only person who could – and make it stick. You are, Jack. You are.” A chair appeared behind Jack. “NOW SIT YOUR BLOODY ARSE DOWN. Once upon a time….”
* * *
The old woman sighed. She was good at it. “So that’s how it was. Well, or will be. Or won’t be… or maybe both. Unless…”
“Right.” Jack’s voice was bleak, his eyes cold. “Unless it gets fixed. Which it can’t. Because it’s impossible to fix it.”
“That’s about the size of it, Jack.” The old woman waited.
Jack smiled. The smile was colder than his eyes. “I guess I’d better get on with it, then. I’d just better not…” Jack’s head nodded to what was currently busy not being outside the room “… know why. So you’d better make sure…”
The sound of the old woman’s iron rod smacking over Jack’s head echoed through the room. The old woman crouched down, her hand running over the lump in the unconscious Jack’s leather. A faint mist seeped from her hand into the jacket. The old woman looked at the man on the floor, and smiled – a very, very old smile. Then she bent over, and kissed Jack’s forehead. She winked. “Towonda, Jack. Towonda!”
Where the old woman had been was a shadow – and where the shadow had been, was nothing.
Outside the room, the Universe heaved a sigh of relief, and exploded. By an amazing coincidence, everything ended up exactly where it had been before. Which probably wasn’t a coincidence at all. Inside the room, Jack got up from the floor. One hand rubbed the bruise on his head – the other brushed the lump in his jacket. For some reason, he smiled – a warm smile his face wasn’t used to wearing. Then it was gone. “P?” He looked over to where Prowess had tentacles tight round the throats of two Angels who were busy trying to remember they didn’t actually have to breathe. “Let ‘em go. We’ve got work to do.”
Prowess relaxed the teeth in her tentacles. “Work, Jack? What work?”
Jack shrugged. “Damned if I know, P.”
“So what…?”
“Don’t know that either.”
“Then why…. Er…?”
Jack’s hand brushed a lump in his jacket. He smiled. “Why? I guess… why not?” He paused. “Damn. You think that girl’s a cheer-leader?”
“Cheer-leader, Jack? What’s that got to do with anything?
Jack shrugged. “Oh, nothing I guess.” He paused again. “Save the not-a-cheer-leader, save the…” He shrugged. “No – never catch on. Let’s go, P.”
Chapter Nine
Ready to Rumble
“OK. So I'm going to need some stuff.” The reading had been the usual crap. Not that it being crap meant I didn't need to know it – but once you've read one target file, you've read them all. Works here, shops there, friends, lovers – not that little Miss Target had any of those. But the usual grind's about the only thing you get to make sure you're not the one who gets ground. Like, that time in Vladivostok. If I hadn't known the security guard was left-handed, and how he never ate peanuts – but that's another story. This one, like I said. I had an idea. But like I said as well, even if it looked like CG wasn’t listening, I was going to need some stuff. So I said it again. “Hey. Q-tee. I'm going to need some stuff.”
“Cutie?” Apparently CG-s ears were fine, even if he didn't look too happy about it. Or, at least, about what he was hearing.
I sighed. “No. Not this time.” I winked. “OK. So this time too. No. I mean Q hyphen t and a couple of e-s. Like, Q-tee.” CG looked blank. If he'd been an agent, he'd have got a gold star. As it was, he was just a thousand year old eight year old kid. So I sighed – again. “Like, Q.” CG must have heard blank was in style this season. I sighed for a third time. “You don't get to see too many movies, huh? Never mind. Forget it.”
This time CG sighed. I guess he figured it was his turn. He opened a drawer, and reached in for a file. “So. You've done your homework I take it? Here's how we're going to do this...”
The slam was loud. Louder than my Glock. But then you can't put a silencer on a drawer. CG likely should have been screaming, the way his hand was mashed inside the drawer I'd slammed shut on it. On the other hand my Glock was probably making the whole screaming thing kind of hard, the way it was filling his mouth. I pushed it in a little deeper. “Look. Don't get me wrong. I mean, I actually kind of like you. Well, I might if the whole idea of liking an eight year old kid didn't feel quite so weird. But don't get the wrong idea. Even Mom stopped trying to tell me how to do my jobs a long time ago, and you're not Mom. So your file stays in your fucking drawer, and I tell you what I need. Then you get it for me. OK?” The bitch about the Glock is, it's hammer-less. So you don't get to make a point by tightening the trigger and watching their eyes as they watch the hammer go back. So you do it with your eyes. If the mark can't see the hammer there, and the certainty of a whole lot more trouble if they don't do exactly what you want, then you're in the wrong job. I pulled my Glock out of CG's mouth, but slammed the drawer on his hand again. “We clear, pretty boy?”
“You can't - I mean - look, you have to...”
CG clearly wasn't happy. Whether it was because he was probably going to have to stop whimpering long enough to magic himself a new right wrist, or because I wasn't interested in whatever was in his file didn't really matter. What did matter was how people have no idea how much they give away with non-verbal language, like maybe a flickered eyeball. So I didn't bother looking behind me. “Fuck off, Mom. I'm working.” Mom's heels got to clip on the floor, the way she hadn't let them when she sneaked in, and CG got to look a bit more scared. Probably not by anything I was saying – more by all the things Mom hadn't said. Things like “Do be a good girl and take your gun out of his mouth, darling.” Stuff like that. “OK, CG. Stuff. Not stuff as in 'we don't do it that way.' Stuff as in 'Maya needs'. As in 'Yes, Maya. Right away, Maya.'” I blew him a kiss, just to show I wasn't really mad. Then I stuck my Glock under his chin, just to show we were still working.
“Oh.” I could feel his gulp in my trigger finger. Lucky for CG, I'm good with my fingers. If he got real lucky, he might find out just how good one day. “Right. Of course. So, er, how do we do this, boss?”
I had a feeling the 'boss' wasn't a hundred percent sincere. Which was fine by me. I knew I wasn't pointing my Glock into anything actually CG-ish. But it got my point across. “OK. So the gig is, I get to travel in time, I get to make sure Little Miss Maggie doesn't buy a lottery ticket, and I have to keep it loud, but invisible. Good so far?”
“Good so far. And, um, can I have my head back? Please?”
I slipped my Glock back in my thigh holster, making sure CG had some solid distraction while I did. He didn't distract, which was good. It showed we were both working, not just me. “Right. So I need some stuff.”
“Stuff. Could you possibly be a little more precise? Do I get a colour, or do we play twenty questions?”
CG's ass was getting smart again. I figured I could smack him down, or let him run. But guys are kinda sensitive like that, so I let him run. “I need the building security duty list for the night before she buys her ticket, and for the next day. Oh, and I need a hat-rack”
“If you hadn't been more interested in breaking my wrist, you'd have seen they were in the file I had for you.”
/>
“Great. So unless you want the other wrist breaking too?” I waited. He opened the drawer – with his left hand – and gave me the file. The duty lists had pictures, which helped. Names can be confusing. Like that time in Caracas, and Kim... but that's another story too. I ran my finger down the roster. “Great. The security passes I can take care of. But I'm going to need a glamor...” CG blushed. “Gutter, CG. As in mind. Like, get yours out of. So I'm going to need a glamor ring for this guy, and another one for the hat-rack.” Tony Warren was one of the two on the night shift. The hat-rack was a guy called Sam. Because Maggie’s job was to keep the ‘in’ in insurance. As in, the money in, and not out. So when some poor sap made a claim, her job was to find some reason not to pay. Which was pretty bad news for the saps, but good news for me. Because it had made it pretty easy for CG to find someone with a grudge. Sam was ex-military, and a small-time crook. He also had a dead wife, who he'd actually given a damn about before she'd been on the wrong end of a T-bone on her way to work. The Insurance Company weaseled the deal, and Sam didn't get a penny. He was going to fit my hat just fine.
“No can do.”
CG seemed almost happy. Me, I wasn't happy about him making me unhappy. “Why not?”
CG sighed. “Look. Just because it's magic, that doesn't mean it's easy. Hell, it's mostly harder. I have to find the right demon, which means finding what your guy's got that some demon might want. That means...
“So who cares? Time travel, right? We can take as long as we need.” The 'magic' thing was getting easier, so long as I didn't stop too long to think about it.
“No, we can't. You're a virgin.”
I laughed. “Only in my left ear.” I remembered Caracas – and Kimmie, and her trick with... I stopped remembering. I was working. “OK. So not even my left ear.”
CG blushed. He was getting good at it. “No. Not that. I mean, time travel. The further back you go, the more careful you have to be.” CG blushed again. “Well, or so they tell me.”
I was curious. “Who tells you? Demons?”
For a moment, CG looked scared. And I could tell he wasn't the kind to scare easy. “Demons? I fucking wish... No. Others. Just – others. So we have to move fast, so you only trip as short a ways back as we can get.”
“CG. I need that ring. Isn't there any other way?”
“Well, sure. All we have to do is get some... well, some... Look, I need to get a lock on his soul, so I need...”
“Blood? Is that all? Why didn't you say so? I'll...”
“No. No, not blood exactly. See, blood's OK, but for real power I need something...” CG blushed a third time. “Well, another kind of, um, personal fluid.”
I laughed. “Oh! That's all right then. For a moment, I thought it was going to be something hard.” I laughed again. “Though hard may just come...” CG was blushing redder than a brothel on sale night. I giggled. “... hard may just come into it after all.”
* * *
“You have got to be kidding me.” Tony was snoring gently. I hadn't got round to untying the leather straps from his wrists and ankles before I called CG, and it was a good job he was sleeping, because what he had in his mouth would have made talking difficult. But I'd made damn sure he was exhausted before he drifted off. He had a smile on his sleeping face to prove. it. I shrugged. “All in a night's work, CG. And trust me...” I grinned “... it was real hard work.” True to form, CG blushed. “Anyway. I needed his uniform, so I figured I might as well enjoy getting him out of it.” I handed him the rubber. “That what you needed?”
CG blushed again. “That... will do nicely, I'm sure. It should only take me about an hour or so.”
“Then I'll meet you back at base in maybe two. I've got Tony's pass – now I need to pick up a sample.” CG looked blank. I shook my head. “Sample, CG. SAM-ple. There's this new invention – it's called a sense of humour. You should look into it. Oh, never mind. I'll drop it by the office when I'm done. Oh. And bank details. I'll need them. Terry and Sam. OK?” I moved for the window. I've never really been a door kind of girl if I can avoid it.
“Er, Maya?”
I stopped. Yes, CG?”
“Shouldn't you put some clothes on first?”
I sighed. Details. They'll kill you every time.
Sonata
Sviluppo - Secondo Movimento
Washington D.C. - 350 And Down
“So memories are souls.”
The man in the black leather duster didn't look up from the gun he was loading, even though he could have done it with his eyes shut. “That's about the size of it, P.”
“So memories are souls, and you don't have one. Or if you do, it's not the kind of soul that holds you down, so you can 'feel' other souls, and...”
“That's not quite what he said, P. He said...”
Prowess sighed. “Shut up, Jack. I'm thinking. Damn, Jack. Why don't you have a piano here?”
“Why would I want a piano, P?”
“So I can think, of course. Don't be silly.” Prowess' flowed, and a rather fleshy baby Grand Piano, bigger, or rather smaller, on baby than Grand took shape on the floor. Two arms morphed from the front of the piano, and the notes of Dragonstar drifted into the air.
The man in black leather loaded his gun. “You know what they say about playing with yourself, P?”
The baby not-a-piano blushed red. Then suddenly, the piano's lid grew a mouth. “Jack! That's it!” The piano's fingers carried on playing. The man in black leather unloaded his gun, then loaded it again. “I said, Jack! That's...”
“I know what you said, P.” Jack's fingers twitched, and the gun was gone. “You said 'that's it'. Then you were going to say how you don't play notes, you play the music. How you don't think about the notes, just how all of them fit together, and let your fingers do the notes while your head does the piece. Or maybe you'd have said heart, because that's the kind of thing you say. And then you were going to say how I shouldn't try and feel where the girl was, and try to find her. I should decide I'd already found her, and feel what was different. Right?”
“I didn't know you could read minds, Jack.”
The man in the leather duster shrugged. “I can't.”
“So how...?”
“You play piano, P. I load my gun. It's the same thing really.”
“So you know where, I mean, when, she is? You can feel her soul?”
“Nope.”
“So how...??”
“Because I know when I am. I can feel the storm. And it wasn't there until I decided I was going to find her.” Where the gun had been in Jack's hand, there was something much more dangerous. Jack uncapped the bottle, and the smell of Unicorn horn filled the air. Then he was gone.
The piano smiled at the space that used to be Jack. Then it smiled at the shadow that hadn't been on the wall until it was. “Did I do it right?”
Shadows can't generally speak. So this one didn't. “You did just fine. How did you...?”
The piano shrugged, a clever trick for something without shoulders. “Oh, some subsonic here, some ultra there, a whisper he'll never remember hearing. It's a lot easier when I'm the strings as well.”
The shadow that wasn't there flowed from the wall it wasn't on. “So why the hands?”
The piano did its own flowing. Prowess fingers never stopped playing, even though there wasn't a piano anywhere for them to play. The notes of ‘Dragonstar’ filled the room. “So he didn't ask questions. And because I love to play.” For a moment, she looked sad. “Can you wait? I love this part.”
The shadow raised an eyebrow it didn't have. “Wait?”
Prowess turned away from the shadow. The last notes of Dragon Star hung on the air a moment longer than they should have. “I mean, before you make me forget again.” The shadow on the wall raised a shadow arm, one holding a shadow rod. The rod fell on Prowess’ head, but gently. The shadow sighed. “I’m sorry, Lee-Ann.” Then the shadow was gone.
Jack unwrapped the Shadow ro
und him and unloaded his gun. He knew neither of them would remember him being there - it happened a lot, and it was just the way he liked it. He used to wonder if that was why The Dragon had chosen him to be a gnat. It came in useful. Now he was beginning to think maybe they hadn’t chosen him at all. He reloaded his gun, and took the real flask of Horn from his pocket.
Chapter Ten
Wake Up Yesterday
Whatever Jethro Tull said (OK, so Mom likes weird old music) – this ‘livin’ in the past’ thing wasn’t anything to write home about. Getting there, or in my case here, since ‘there’ seemed to be where I was, was a bitch. Or at least yucky enough my taste buds were seriously considering legal action. I don’t know if it’s the Unicorn Horn or the Virgin’s Tears – but trust me. The stuff in the bottle CG gave me was never going to catch on with the ‘do you come here often, and your place or mine’ cocktail crowd. Still, either the Organisation had some amazing movie sets, and it probably did, or I was going to have to stop sniggering every time someone said ‘magic’. A newspaper I grabbed had a date insisting Steve Logan had a few weeks to walk without limping, and the streets round me weren’t downtown Middle of Nowhere. The Apple was Big, and all round me were bits just waiting for me to bite. Hell, I even knew what numbers the lottery machine was going to spit out at the end of the week. CG had made a big deal of reminding me. And an even bigger deal of telling me how much high velocity lead poisoning I was going to get if I did anything quite so stupid as trying to use them. So unless all the livin’ I wanted to do in this particular past involved screaming a lot while bleeding to death from a gut-shot, it had better be just another day at the Organisation’s kind of office. A day when a file needed the Organisation’s kind of closing.
