by Therin Knite
Williams. Her surname.
We accelerate through the open gateway, the car maneuvering around a flower garden in the middle of the community’s central roundabout. It turns left then right then left again into a small cul-de-sac, coming to a brief stop in front of a two-story mini-mansion. Another car passes us, its headlights burning my drug-addled corneas, and once the street is clear, our car finishes the parking job by backing into the driveway and settling inside a roomy garage. The garage door closes as the car shuts down, cutting off my view of the street.
“Where are we?” I ask.
Ms. Williams opens her door and chuckles. “My house, honey. Can you get out by yourself?”
I can try. My legs are weak and wobbly, my head spinning as I stand, and I have to lean against the car every three steps in order to prevent myself from falling over.
Williams takes my arm and helps me up the garage steps, leading me into a wide hallway decorated with expensive, Pre-Fall artwork. The hallway leads to a combined kitchen, dining room, and living room area with a vaulted ceiling and luxurious furnishings. Williams guides me to a plush, cream-colored sofa and settles me onto it, using her Ocom to switch on a screen embedded in the wall above a fireplace. Battle Game is on.
“Is that okay? I can change it to a movie or something, if you’d prefer.”
“It’s fine.”
“Great! I’ll go whip up some coffee. It’ll help you come down.” She scuttles off into the kitchen, grabs two mugs from a cabinet, and turns on a massive coffee maker that has more brew options than the average coffee shop and probably cost more than my rent. While she’s waiting for the machine to finish, she whistles a new wave rock tune I recognize as her Ocom ringtone. I heard it over and over again throughout the morning, and oddly, it pervades even the blackout gaps, where there’s nothing else but murkiness, heat, and the sensation of someone violating my personal space. It’s a popular song, high up on the charts.
Atop the fireplace mantel is a series of digital frames, each one with a different theme. The one on the far left contains a set of nature photographs; the inscription on the frame proclaims they were taken by Williams herself during her college years. Next to that frame is one displaying two smiling older people, a man and a woman, who must be her parents. On the far right is another with a slideshow of Williams’ modder friends, nightmare girl and cotton candy woman among them. The fourth and final frame has a single picture of a single man in a prim business suit.
V. Manson – Case 5520
Client killed partner, Lionel Rampart, in self-defense (via heroin overdose) after partner experienced fit of violent rage caused by drug cocktail. Partner took drugs after an argument involving suspected infidelity and then assaulted client with a weapon (a small statuette) before attempting strangulation. One witness, Missy Burgess, daytime maid, confirmed details of argument and was first on scene after assault. Client was cleared of all criminal charges but fined for heroin possession. Client retained civil union benefits.
“Here you go.” Williams sinks onto the sofa and hands me a cup of piping hot coffee. It’s some special seasonal blend, sprinkled with cinnamon and a few other spices I don’t know the names of.
“Thanks.” I blow at the curl of steam rising from the foam.
“So, is this a rerun of last week’s game?”
“Huh?”
“The show. Battle Game.” She sips at her drink, smirking.
“Oh, I wasn’t paying attention.” My head is starting to clear, and it has begun to catalogue every object of interest it comes across. The frames. The coffee maker. The patio that is all too similar to the one attached to Victor Manson’s house. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine. You’re still a little out of it. I didn’t know you’d zonk out on me if I gave you a few drugs. My bad.”
“I didn’t know you’d invite me into your private dining room to meet all your friends and then drug me. I would have warned you about my low tolerance if I’d known.” Truthfully, I would have run. Far, far away. “People generally don’t introduce men who turned them down to their friends.”
“Not generally, but you’re a cutie, and I wanted another shot at you. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to have a nice chat. Plus, I do have a number of personal bodyguards, as you’ve seen. If you’d pissed me off, I could have just thrown you out.” She opens the channel list on her Ocom and scrolls through it, choosing some science fiction station that specializes in shows recovered from the old world. Something called The Twilight Zone is today’s main feature. It’s in black and white.
“They’re not here now, your guards.”
“No.”
“So you don’t consider me a liability?”
“No.” She downs most of her mug in a few rounds, licking foam off the top of her lip. “I consider you—”
“Should he?”
“Pardon?”
I point to the fourth frame. “Should he consider me a liability?”
She goes quiet, eyes lingering on the man in the suit. Her thumbnail traces shapes on the side of her mug as she considers how to answer my question. This is the first time I’ve had a chance to show her how perceptive I am, and she wasn’t expecting it. She’s used to controlling the flow of conversation. She has her friends wrapped around her finger, ready and willing to compliment her whenever she pleases. She has control over everyone wherever she goes, whether through alcohol or drugs or sheer force of will. Ms. Williams is smart. But she is vain beyond salvation.
Up until this point, she thought she was doing a wonderful job of investigating me. That was the whole point of this charade—inviting me to dance at Valkyrie, welcoming me to dinner, and now taking me home with her. I’m a “cutie” all right, but I am not her type. She would never treat me with such hospitality without an ulterior motive. And the only motive she could possibly have is suspicion. I work for the IBI, the agency that was investigating Manson’s demise, and she is one of the only Manson clients whose redacted case file involves a violent death and a lot of unanswered questions. She knows exactly who I am, and she thinks I’m onto her.
Onto what is the question I need answered.
“He was my partner.” Williams drains the last of her coffee. “His name was Lionel. He died last year.” There’s a hint of bitterness in those words.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pried.”
“No. You have a right to ask about relationships. Many people fear becoming the other person.” Her fingers tighten around her mug, nails pressed hard against the ceramic. A thin white line stretches across her index nail. It was recently broken.
My coffee has stopped steaming, and I take a sip. The strength of the flavor makes my gums tingle. “What happened to him, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Drug overdose. Heroin.” She doesn’t hesitate, despite the weight of the question. She’s testing me to see what I do with the answer. I’m taking her exactly where she feared I would. There’s more to her partner’s death than a domestic dispute gone wrong, and I’m going to find out what it is. I could break this ruse right now and probably cajole the truth out of her, but I’m curious to see how she combats my advances.
I scoot closer to her. “I’m sorry. Did you know he had a problem?”
“No.” He had many problems.
“So, how did it happen? Was it at home? Here? Or—”
She moves. She sits her mug down, snatches my own, places it next to hers on a side table, pushes me with all her might onto my back, straddles me, and starts to kiss me passionately. The lingering effects of the drug cocktail combined with the shock leave me helpless at first, and by the time I can mount enough coordination to respond, she’s already undoing my pants. To be fair, I do have an erection, which is a natural response to having someone very attractive kiss the fuck out of you and start taking your clothes off. Someone, of course, you would otherwise be willing to consent to wild sex with…if you didn’t suspect her of consorting with a guy who uses dragons to kill
people.
Because that’s my hunch: Ms. Williams’ adulterous lover is the Manson killer.
I push her back and crawl out from under her. “Whoa, Ms. Williams. You need to hold up. I think we should talk a bit more before…before…”
“Before what?” Her voluminous pink hair, now undone, has tumbled over her shoulders and obscured most of what’s behind her in my field of vision. Most. Not all. I can still see one of the two sliding glass doors that lead to the patio that looks ever so much like the one at Victor Manson’s house.
Now it even has its own dragon.
Chapter Twelve
I become an Olympic gymnast for five and a half seconds. I haul Williams over the side of the sofa, scoop her up with my one good arm, and leap through the nearest open doorway. Her sliding glass patio doors implode before an inferno, and as we bounce to a stop on the bedroom floor, she’s screaming, batting at my face with her hands, and screaming some more. The fire suppression system activates, a shrill whine echoing throughout the house, and a hidden sprinkler system descends from the ceiling and starts shooting water over the flaming remnants of her living room.
“What the hell was that? What is going on?” She untangles herself from me and backs away, grabbing a pair of scissors off a nearby desk.
“We’re being attacked by a dragon that’s being controlled by a murderer that I think is the guy you were cheating on your partner with.” Leaving the dream part out seems sensible for now.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” She waves the scissors at me, trying to ward me off.
I don’t have to explain. I just have to point. Because the dragon has circled around the side of the house and is peering through her bedroom window. She whirls around, stares at it for a few moments, and then screams at the top of her lungs, dropping the scissors in shock. I reach out and grab her arm, yanking her back through the doorway into a smoky living room that’s mostly saturated char. The smell of burning plastic and rubber twists my drug-sensitized stomach, but I force myself to charge through the mess and down the hallway, Williams in tow.
She leans close to me and whispers in my ear. “Why is this happening? Why is that thing attacking us?”
“I think I’m too close to finding out the truth, or you’re too close to giving it to me. Both maybe.”
“Truth. You mean about Victor?”
“Ah, so you’re finally dropping the rouse, huh? You know who I am?”
“You work for the IBI. I know that. You think I was involved in Victor’s death, right?”
“Were you?”
We’ve plastered ourselves to the stairway wall, Williams watching the window at the top of the landing, me scanning the fan-shaped one in the front door. The dragon’s tail flashes in view of the door, and I nudge Williams to continue up the stairs. She’s got a grip on my arm now, and her nails dig into my skin as we creep up the steps.
“It was an accident,” she says. “I accidentally sent Victor a message he wasn’t supposed to see. Victor, he was a great lawyer but…not a very nice guy. What I sent him gave away an important person’s name, and he was going to give it to the press for money and ruin that person.”
“That person being your adulterous lover?”
She gnaws on her lip. “Yeah.”
“So said adulterous lover took care of Manson. Is that it?”
“Yeah. That’s it.”
“And his name is?”
She shakes her head. “He wouldn’t do this to me.” The dragon shrieks loudly somewhere near the back patio. “He wouldn’t.”
“Look, Williams. This man, whoever he is, doesn’t care about you. He doesn’t care about anyone but himself. He’s going to kill as many people as it takes to protect his identity, his position, and his career. He considers you a mistake. He considers you a problem. Just like Manson was a problem. And I’m sure you saw the press release on Manson: Lawyer Burned to Death in Tragic Patio Fire.” I’m being very callous, but I need to get this woman to accept she’s been lied to, or we are both going to die. If not here, if not now, then somewhere close and soon. “Tell me his name. I have friends who can stop him.”
A tear streams down one of her cheeks, smudging her makeup. “No. Nobody can stop him. Not him.”
Glass cracks and wood groans in the ruined living room. It’s in the house.
“For gods’ sakes. At least tell me this. Were you the one who took the hit out on me? Ingram Walker?”
“I…” Her lips open and close, soundless.
“Did you do it because you thought you were going to get in trouble for your role in Manson’s death? You saw me at Valkyrie and thought I was investigating you? That I knew?”
Ten seconds of nothing. And then: an almost imperceptible nod.
“So it’s all about you, isn’t it? All the goddamned time. I don’t know if anybody’s ever said this to your face before, Williams, but you are a self-centered bitch.” I grab a vase off a nearby side table and chuck it from the top of the stairs into the kitchen below. It shatters on impact with the fridge, and almost instantly, a stream of fire shoots from somewhere out of sight and burns the kitchen black. “Now that we’ve established you’re a horrible person, how about we escape? You got a pool?”
“What?”
“Pool.”
“Why?” She brushes her tangled pink locks away from her face. “You want to go for an early morning swim?”
“Actually, I want something we can land safely in after we jump out a second-story window.”
“Oh. Right.” She points to the end of the hall. “Bathroom window overlooks it.”
We reach the bathroom unseen, the dragon still prowling around downstairs, and I force open the window with as little sound as I can manage. “Long jump. But we can take it. Is the pool full?”
“Yeah. It’ll be cold though. I shut the heating and cleaning systems off last week. It’s supposed to be drained tomorrow morning.” She climbs onto the windowsill and peers down, hesitating to take the plunge. “Lucky us, hu—?” The dragon shrieks several times louder than before, and Williams, startled, lets go and pushes herself away from the window, gasping as she falls. I scramble forward when I hear her hit the water and hurl myself out after her, sailing through the cool September air.
She was right. The water is freezing. That and something slimy invades my nostrils before I make it to the surface. When I reemerge into the fading night, spitting and hacking, I find Williams sitting on the edge of the pool, offering me a hand. She helps lift me out, water cascading off my new designer clothes, and we take a short (very short), wet break to breathe before scrambling up and running for our lives.
“What do we do now?” she asks as we round the hedges at the edge of her lawn.
“I have no idea.” I hate admitting that, but I haven’t the slightest clue how to deal with the dream dragon in real life. In the echo, I made some boots magically appear on my feet and used them to my advantage, but I’m helpless in reality. A gun, even if I had one, wouldn’t touch that thing. I need a rocket launcher or a missile or a hovercopter-grade machine gun, none of which I have access to.
But I can get access to them…if I ask Briggs.
“Let’s find a good hiding spot,” I say. Then I’m going to make a call that will result in me being arrested, but hey, stuck in a holding cell is better than dead.
Williams leads me through the shadowed areas of the cul-de-sac, most of the houses dark. Either her neighbors are the heaviest sleepers on the planet, or none of them are here. Which makes sense, to some degree. As a rich modder, she probably lives in a community with other rich modders, a group that is notorious for club-hopping until the early hours of the morning. Lucky, lucky people. The one time that bad habits like drinking and smoking and dancing and fucking to excess come in handy.
Finally, we settle behind a row of prickly bushes next to a three-story house that has six boats, four cars, and a vintage one-person airplane parked in the backyard. “This is Mike R
owen’s winter house,” Williams says. “He only lives here from October to March.”
“Well, hopefully by October, there won’t be dragons in this neighborhood anymore.” I dig around in all pockets, searching for my Ocom. The first one I find is Martin Rickman’s, and I shove it back into my coat with a growl. I locate my own on the second try, find Briggs in my contacts, and hit the dial button. It rings. And rings. And rings.
“He’s really going to kill me, isn’t he?” Her voice quakes.
“You were really going to kill me, weren’t you?”
She stiffens. “I panicked, okay? I made a mistake.”
“Calling an assassin. Pretty big mistake.”
“Do you want me to apologize?”
“Are you sorry?”
She’s shaking and shivering, cold and wet, dirt-streaked and emotionally distraught. But even though her own actions led to this state, she isn’t ready to take responsibility and blame herself. “Not really. I hate you. I don’t even know your full name, but I hate you. No matter what happens now, no matter if I live through this, my life is ruined. My wealth. My reputation. I’m going to lose it all, right, because I’m involved in this mess? So, no. I’m not sorry I called Ingram on you. I’m sorry that he fucking missed.”
I stare at her, dumbfounded. “By the old gods, you are the most messed-up person I have ever met in my life. Are you being serious right now? You can eliminate ninety-nine percent of all the charges you’ll be dealt if you cooperate and tell me your lover’s name. You know that, don’t you? One name. Poof. You’re in the clear. You keep everything you own. You get minimum jail time. And that’s despite the fact you tried to off me with a shitty assassin. This guy, the guy you are protecting—catching him is a thousand times more important than catching you. Criminally speaking, you are insignificant. You’re a clue that will help me stop the important villain. And if you’ll just play nice and act like a good little clue, you’ll be off the hook in no time. Hell, I will vouch for you if you tell me your lover’s name!”
