Whisper Of A Moment

By Aadler

Part I

He’s up on the stage, strutting and grinning, and the women are just going nuts. I don’t get it myself, and I keep looking him over, checking moves and form, trying to understand the appeal. Skinny, gawky, uncoordinated, decent muscle tone but not that much muscle, and the skateboard routine is way beyond lame. He’s not in the same class as the beefcake delights that came before, so why are the women so crazy over him?

No inspiration, so I give up studying the guy and start scanning the audience, hoping I can learn something from their behavior. It’s a cross-section, all ages and classes and even a few non-Caucasians (still having trouble getting used to seeing this many white faces all together), but they seem pretty unanimous in their response: crazy for the geek, go figure. One at a table by herself, dressed with a kind of understated class that to me screams trust-fund baby or professor type, she’s watching him with a little smile and one eyebrow tilting up, and I can see she’s enjoying the crowd reaction as much as the show. Two together, young brunette and older redhead (mother and daughter, maybe?), the brunette is whooping it up and grabbing at Mom’s purse for dollar bills, and her mother or aunt or whatever is fending her off and trying to look embarrassed, but she can’t keep her own eyes off the stage. Table of five, four Anglo and one Chicana but all of them classic Valley Girls, slamming back Blue Lagoons and mai tais and speculating loudly about what they might do if they decided to take Skateboard Guy home with them. Two of the larger tables shoved together, close to a dozen women, late thirties to early forties, PTA clear down to the toes; some are acting like the Valley Girls, but most are like redheaded Mom, nodding and smiling and having a high old time without getting intense about it. One in the corner, hanging back …

Danger prickles the skin on my arms and neck and I continue the scan, not letting it linger on the woman in the corner, suddenly understanding what’s going on even while I wish I hadn’t put off scrounging a weapon. Snapshot glimpse: pale hair, long and drawn back, pale eyebrows, dark haunted eyes, old-fashioned clothes that look stylish without being expensive. She’s riveted on Skateboard Guy like he’s an antelope and she’s a cheetah, or maybe the other way around, but she’s not enjoying herself, and that explains what I’ve been seeing till now. He’s having fun, and it shows, and they’re having fun watching him, and it just loops from them to him and back again, every female in the place except for me and that one.

This was supposed to be a side-trip, a little personal extra worked in while I was dealing with the main job. So how come all of a sudden I feel like I’m standing in a shooting gallery, trying not to go quack?

I’m already in motion, automatically seeking some spot where I can sink below her notice … but she’s moving, too, and not in response to me, her eyes are still locked on the stage, it’s more like she recovered from some solid shock and decided to make herself absent. Reassuring, at least a little, but I’m not letting it go, I shift my course to match hers at a position that should be just outside her peripheral vision. Even if this won’t pose an immediate problem for me, I still want to get some idea of what currents are flowing right now.

I’ve been making the rounds of anarch-raves since I was twelve, so a light crowd like this shouldn’t pose the least challenge … and it doesn’t, but the pale woman still beats me to the exit with a bigger lead than she had at the beginning. She’s not even hurrying, just gliding straight ahead in a way that somehow never intersects any of the people in her path. Maybe I could have kept up without attracting attention, but it ticks me that I should even have to try; whoever this woman is, she’s better than me in at least one area of physical capability, and I’m just not used to that at all.

My pride carries a price tag: by the time I hit the parking lot, there’s no sign of the woman. There are others here and there, leaning against various vehicles, talking and laughing and piping in particulate carcinogens for relaxation. Plenty of places for my target to be hiding, too, the poled lamps provide lots of light but also lots of shadows, hidden areas, blind spots between parked vehicles … but somehow I don’t think so, her body language said she was running but not from me, and I don’t know any way she could have spotted me. And, even if she did, I still want to know the shape of things here.

The Fabulous Ladies Night Club sits by itself just off the highway a few miles outside Oxnard, but there’s a mini-mart/ coffee shop about a hundred feet up the road, close enough that the pale woman might have gotten there and slipped from sight if she’d increased her speed when she got outdoors. I quickfoot across the scrubby grass intervening and transition to the crushed rock of the shop-mart parking lot. I’ve come up on the back of the building, and I swing around the east side to emerge at the front, eyes sweeping the bright-lit lot and the highway beyond for some glimpse of my unexpectedly elusive quarry …

A low chuckle ghosts from the shadows behind me, and I jump like a tasered ferret, spinning and cursing myself for a dozen different kinds of idiot, amateur, slackwit, disgrace, waste of living space … Okay, so it’s not quite that bad, I should be wiped for stupidity but this isn’t a trap, just a momentary annoyance. A piece of the side wall juts out past the face of the main building, and tucked back into the semi-alcove it forms is a parked motorcycle, and the no-doubt-owner coming to his feet with a lazy menace that I can tell is really supposed to impress me. Young, lean, hard muscle and tattoos and scars and leather and chrome … I truly don’t know whether to yawn or laugh. Make no mistake, I can see at a glance that this specimen is perfectly willing to carry me off by force, terrorize me and rape me and maybe snap my neck in the mellow afterglow and tootle on his way musing happily on how grand life can be; I just have trouble taking him seriously.

“Hey, there, sweet cheeks,” he says with the mandatory leer, making a show of stripping me with his eyes. “Wanna straddle my hog?”

The material has a smitch of originality, but he loses points for the delivery. “ ‘Hog?’ ” I repeat, and punctuate it with a phtt! of derision. “ ‘Little piggy’ would be more my guess.” I swivel to head back across the grass, adding, “Go knot yourself, nadless.”

As expected, his hand is on my shoulder before I finish the first step, and his voice is ugly with anger. “You ain’t goin’ nowhere, cu–”

I follow the direction he started when he pulled me around, continuing across the front of the shop-mart and letting my eyes register the interior — no sign of the woman — without actually turning my head to look. Behind me Little Piggy croaks and thrashes on the ground, which can’t be doing his leathers any good. I’m not in the best mood right now, but I behaved myself; I didn’t quite blind him, he’ll be able to resume breathing in another minute, and the thumb will probably be usable again after a few weeks in a cast. (He may or may not need surgery on that knee, though.) Damn it, where could the woman have gone? There are two possibilities here, and I don’t know which thought pleases me less: that she could have picked up on me despite my care, or that she could have vanished so thoroughly and effortlessly without even knowing I was there.

I don’t like mysteries and I’m not exactly long on patience, but I give myself a mental smack and head back across the grass to FLN. It’s time to get myself under control; I’m here on a mission, stopping by to see the geek was an indulgence already and I’ve compounded it by honing in some weird woman watching him. The thick-neck at the door doesn’t ask to see the little stamp on my hand, just steps out of my way, maybe he remembers me or maybe some of the kick-the-crap-out-of-somebody frustration I’m feeling shows in my face. For that thought, I apply another internal smack: Pull it together, togglehead!

I can’t have been outside for more than a minute or two; up on the stage, Geekboy is winding up his routine, so many bills stuffed into his jock he looks like he’s wearing shrubbery. What is it with this guy? The files told me where I’d be able to find him about now, but there were no reports of him being stalked by some nameless, mysterious female …

Oh. Right.

I sit at the only empty spot immediately in view, the second chair at the little table occupied by the woman I marked down as a college professor. I don’t look at her, I keep my face toward the stage and let my face settle into the open, happy smile I see all around me. Basic camouflage, I’ve got my bearings back and now I’m just staying under the radar while I sort out the last of it.

‘Nothing in the files’, oh yeah. Which of the files don’t have one supernatural woman or another fixating on him? This boy is the Bermuda Triangle of normal relationships, a moving centerpoint of perpetual chaos. If the pale woman is undocumented it’s because she’s not significant, just one more piece of wreckage rolling in his wake. I can relate, but it doesn’t mean I care, I’m light as long as her agenda doesn’t cause any complication or inconvenience for me.

The music flares as he leaves the stage with a grin and a wave and one last exaggerated grind of the hips, and a lot of happy satisfied women sit back and call to have their liquor replenished. There’s one mystery settled, then: just going by his yearbook photo, I couldn’t figure how a dweeb like that could be so popular at a place like the Fabulous Ladies Night Club. Now I know, some freaky personality chemistry between him and the audience, probably the first time in his life he ever got anything from female onlookers besides groans and snickers. Still a lot of questions up in the air, but a fair return for a spur-of-the-moment recon.

A glance at the clock over by the bar reminds me that I have actual business scheduled for the evening. No real crunch, still twenty minutes before we’re due to meet, but it won’t hurt to check in. I flip open the little StarTac and punch in the contact number I set into the speed dial earlier today. Hold the receiver to my ear, half-turn to signal one of the servers for a drink …

Two feet away, Professor Jane is pulling a cell phone from the small, classy handbag in front of her, and through the festive chatter around us I can hear the thin breeep! of the ring. She pauses for a second as our eyes meet, takes in the phone I’m holding, and then presses the TALK button on hers. Through the StarTac and across the table she says, “Harry Doyle.”

“Right,” I say into the phone. “I was going to confirm our meeting, but I’m guessing that won’t be an issue here.” I break the connection and fold away the little cellular. “Wasn’t expecting to run into you in this joint, but then nobody told me Harry was a gal’s name on the West Coast.”

“It probably wasn’t until I got here.” Her phone goes back into the handbag, and she favors me with a serene little smile. “This looked like a fun place to wait until we were due to meet … and you have to admit, the show was entertaining.”

“Skateboard Guy?” I snort at that. “Yeah, he’s running some juice, but I’m damned if I can say just what makes it work.” I nod at her instead of offering my hand; this is a professional meeting, even if the setting is casual. “I’m Dina Musci, but I’d say you know that already.” I pronounce it Mew-see; don’t want to get too close to the actual word, she’s one who might recognize it.

Her return nod is equally brisk, as if to say, Okay, we can keep this impersonal, if that’s how you want it. Fine, because I do. “Your e-mail inquiry intrigued me, Ms Musci. Not many people know of my area of study.”

“Word gets around,” I reply. “And the word is that you bring a new perspective to cataloguing demons.”

“It’s true that I don’t quite follow the traditional track,” she agrees. “I’m more concerned with learning the ways different demon species have adapted to the modern world, than with studying old histories and battle reports in hopes of finding new techniques for killing them.”

I keep a sympathetic, approving expression on my face, like I agree that killing demons is gauche behavior. “So what can you tell me about Skira’ads, in general?”

She considers the question, and me, with level eyes and no particular hurry. It would be easy to underestimate this woman; behind the pleasant features and fine bone structure is a methodical mind that weighs each step before taking it. “What precisely is your interest in this matter, Ms Musci? Ethno-demonology is a small and rather insular field; we don’t get many outside inquiries, so we generally want to know the asker’s agenda before we start reeling off data.”

That brings a smile. “Afraid I’m a stringer for the Weekly News of the Warped? Sorry, I don’t do the Ames-and-Paris thing.” As a stab at humor, I could have managed better. She’ll have already checked out the credentials I formulated so meticulously, so it’ll be my motives that she’ll want to clarify.

“Lurid publicity would be unwelcome,” she acknowledges, that level expression not shifting by a thousandth of an inch. “But I was actually thinking more in terms of exploitation. I don’t want to be reviving myths about demon-derived aphrodisiacs, rejuvenation serums, cursing fluids or undetectable poisons, and I don’t want to offer aid or encouragement to anyone seeking such ridiculous and wasteful trivia.”

Quietly as she says it, I can still see I won’t be able to dodge here. She’ll get an answer that satisfies her, or she won’t play. “There’s a research group in Australia’s Northern Territory,” I tell her. “They’ve been running a biosphere study for close on three years now, tracking how some of the lesser … ‘non-mundane life forms’, they call them … interact with terrestrial flora and fauna in a sealed ecology. They’ve gotten some indications that a Skira’ad might be settling in nearby in the next few months, and naturally there’s some interest in whether they can set up wards and keep the environment uncontaminated, or if they’ll need to relocate. That’s why your name came up: you’re more likely than most to give us a reliable forecast on the thing’s probable behavior.”

“I heard of something like that,” she says. “Is Dr. Pearson still project coordinator?”

“Pearson keeps up the staff inoculations,” I say, letting myself sound annoyed. “Overhardt is the guy making most of the decisions. Look, I don’t blame you for being cautious, Dr. Doyle —”

“Just Harry,” she says.

“Okay, then, Harry. Careful is good, I’m fine with careful. But think about what I’m asking here: I’m not pumping you for weaknesses, habitats, physio-glandular makeup, any of that. I just want to get your read on whether the Skira’ad is likely to disrupt the operation. Will it be aggressive, intrusive, easily provoked, territorial, what? I want to know what kind of behavior they may have to deal with. That’s all.”

She gives me another nod, of considered acceptance, and I chalk up a score for advance prep. You always want to mix in as much truth as you can, which means knowing the facts and keeping them straight. Besides, I didn’t actually say I worked for Overhardt’s bunch.

“I don’t suppose it really matters,” she answers at last. “It’s impossible to predict these things with complete certainty, Ms Musci, but offhand I don’t foresee any problems for your project. Skira’ad are typically quite gregarious, for demons. Not with each other — unless it’s their mating cycle, and that’s only three weeks every twelve years — but they’re totally captivated by the intricacies and contradictions and irrationality of human social behaviors. As a rule they’d be uninterested in the kind of remote location you’re describing; if one did show up there, it would probably be because he was deliberately seeking solitude, which means he’d shy away from the area once he discovered it was occupied.”

“Huh.” I weigh the information. “They like human contact?”

“In much the same way some humans like origami or video games or model trains.” She smiles at the blank look I can feel on my face. “Skira’ad enjoy playing at human conventions, which makes it easy to think of them in human terms; but we have to recognize and respect that they’re not human, never will be, and don’t really want to be. When I’m studying any demon culture, I keep telling myself over and over, Their ways are not our ways. Partly for safety, but mostly so I look at what’s actually there instead of attributing what I see to some familiar human motivation.” Her face is animated as she warms to the subject. “For Skira’ad, the closest parallel, and still a clumsy one, would be those stereotypical English squires that live only for their dogs and horses. It’s more than a hobby to them, almost a mania, but it’s still only a small aspect of their total nature. They’re them, we’re us, and we may have some things in common but we’ll never be the same.”

“Okay,” I say. Her obvious enthusiasm makes me suspect I might be able to coax more out of her. “With that kind of difference, I have to wonder how they go about satisfying this urge to mix with the pink primates.”

She shakes her head. “Skira’ad have developed a knack for making themselves useful, and there are always going to be people who don’t care about the species of who they’re doing business with, as long as the transaction is advantageous. Real tolerance is rare, mostly there’s a profit motive in there somewhere. As a result, the kinds of humans that typically associate with them … well, let’s say they’re not exactly exemplars of polite society.”

Makes sense; cocktail parties aren’t really designed for seven-foot, mustard-colored warty anteaters. “So, basically, one of these things would be more comfortable in a semi-urban area, and he’d be mixing with some pretty unconventional citizenry?”

Her manner cools by a degree or two; I’m not asking quite the right questions for what I’m supposed to be. “Not many demon species can pass for human, even briefly. One that wants to deal with humans must, by necessity, focus on those that aren’t too choosy about the company they keep.” She stands, picking up the handbag. “I hope I’ve satisfied your concerns, Ms Musci. Now if you’ll excuse me …”

“Yeah, sure, thanks.” I should be peeved — I had hoped to get a little more from her, and it’s not good that I let my character slip when I should be focused — but I can’t really make myself care. She’s not my only source, and I have other things on my mind, and the more time I spend with her the less I feel like extending the experience. “You’ve been a big help. I’ll pass the news. If I need to reach you again for anything, will that number still be good?”

She nods without pausing, and is headed for the door in the next second. I’m definitely winning friends and influencing people tonight; my game is way off, and worse, it doesn’t bother me near as much as I know it should. I’d never have sold my people on sending me here if I’d done this poorly in mission prep; something is messing me up tonight, and I really can’t say what it might be.

I should work on figuring that out. Really, I should.

Instead I start drinking. Even in a regular bar I wouldn’t have any trouble being served; I look older than I am (one reason Harry Doyle was ready to accept me as a globe-trotting trouble-shooter, plus I had already dressed professional casual in anticipation of the meeting), and I paid for top-quality work in my ID. Here, with the pre-screening at the door and the crush of festive women inside, it’s dead easy to keep ’em coming. I’m no connoisseur and I’m not too butch for girlie drinks, I go for the fruity frozen kind — margarita, melon margarita, piña colada, strawberry daiquiri — in quick succession, guzzling all four in not much more time than it takes to mix them.

By the time I finish the last one, I have the mother of all brain-freezes and I’m battling an urgent impulse to leap up onto the stage and start singing. (Something from the Morisette oeuvre, maybe, or Etheridge after she hit the skids and turned bitchy.) This isn’t what I was aiming for, I wanted to get looped but now my head is clanging and my belly is churning and I’m feeling surlier instead of tranked. Whatever is eating at me, hooch isn’t the route to burying it. Time to bring all this fun to a halt and call it a night.

I’d thought the cooler night air outside might help clear my head, but that’s not how it works, there’s a heavy, humid wallop to it that almost makes me gag. I move away from the building and off to the side, trying to get enough distance that I can maybe find a little breeze. Not in the cards. I hear the words — “There, that’s the bitch!” — and swing to face the sound, and maybe things are finally looking up.

Little Piggy is back with reinforcements, two sweaty meatsacks in almost exactly the same outfit he’s wearing: one has a brushy beard and one wears a big gold hoop earring, but otherwise they’re cookie-cutter identical. “ ’S’matter, boys?” I throw some extra slur into the words, and act like I’m just managing not to stagger. “Zookeeper run outta bananas or somethin’?”

Piggy uses a word I don’t recognize, then to the others he says, “Look at her, drunk off her ass. We’ll never get anything out of her like this.”

“So we’ll use her ass for somethin’ else till she sobers up.” This is the bearded one, and instantly I know he’s the one to watch. Piggy has his hand splinted with duct tape and what looks like corrugated cardboard, he still sounds raspy from the shuto to the throat and he’s keeping his weight off the leg I damaged; he won’t be much of a problem, and Earring is waiting with the vibrating eagerness of a born follower. No, Brushyface is the alpha here, his next words more like passing sentence than giving orders. “We’ll work her slow, soften her up and have some yucks while we’re at it. Time we’re done, she’ll be cryin’ to give up her boyfriend, count on it.”

That one throws me for a second. “ ‘Boyfriend?’ You guys dipped or something?” Then I get it, and the laugh bubbles out of me. Little Piggy would never admit a woman painted the pavement with him, so he invented some bruiser I’d sicked on him. Which also means his buddies won’t be remotely prepared for what I can do, so that’s how I play it. “I’m unescorted at the moment, boys, but that don’t mean I’m looking for your charming faces.”

Even before he moves I know how it’s going to happen, I’ve read their postures and attitudes and I already have it planned. Brushyface starts for me with his face clouding into a scowl and I quickshift to my right to keep him between me and Earring, then slam a raking kick down his shin with the edge of my shoe, hardly any structural damage but the unexpected pain will paralyze most men for a second or two. Before he can recover I nail him at the hinge of the jaw with a foreknuckle strike, Earring is still trying to dance around his falling leader and I vault straight over Brushyface to take out the second banana before he can set himself, and Piggy’s on his own now and he’s just starting to realize what kind of deep goo he’s standing in —

That’s the theory, anyhow. What actually happens is this:

Brushyface starts for me with the predicted scowl, I start the right shift, and something crashes into him at an angle from the rear. He’s jolted straight into me while I’m still trying to correct my original motion, and all three of us go down — me, Brushyface, and whatever lunatic decided to deal himself into this scenario. My balance was headed somewhere else, I’m not ready, I lose all my air and damn near crack ribs when I hit the pavement, bodies tumbling over and off me. I’ve been trained hard, though, I bull through the pain and surprise and I’m back up on my feet, and again I’m shoved off balance, and a shaky voice is saying, “Stay behind me. It’ll be okay, I promise —”

Oh my God. It’s the geek.

Crap. Crap. Crap.


Part II

I check the mirror in the morning, and it’s official: I look like hell. Sunken eyes, dry lips, an oblong bruise down my left cheek (don’t remember getting that one, must have caught an elbow during the debacle at FLN) … my skin has a gray tinge, and my whole face looks pinched. I feel just about as bad, too much stress and too little sleep, the ribs don’t catch when I move but they still ache, and there’s a throbbing in the back of my skull where the leads were inserted. (All through my training and acclimation the techies kept telling me that had to be psychosomatic. Either way, it still hurts.) I need forced hydration, two pounds of raw meat, and a day at a spa.

I make do with a shower. That eases away some of the stiffness but doesn’t accomplish much else. While I’m toweling out my hair I glance at the laptop on the little desk next to the draped windows, and can’t help shuddering. Duty or no, a girl can handle only so much on a morning like this. Same for the blinking “MESSAGES WAITING” light on the hotel phone: later.

Breakfast is a Denver omelet and nearly a quart of tomato juice. While I’m rinsing that down with lots of ice water, I review my situation. I’ve established a base of operations, a cash store, transportation, all of the necessary equipment, and a few extras. I’ve met with one of the reference sources I was supposed to consult, and a second is scheduled for this afternoon. During my surfing safaris I’ve cruised the real estate listings, police reports, zoning requests and rulings, commercial licenses and tax records, I’m methodically building the picture that will consolidate into a latticework of facts and inferences. I’ve been here ten days, with another thirteen left in the event window, and so far it seems to be proceeding as planned.

The downside is disturbing but not really definite. I’ve gotten in bad with some local leather crew, which was good for momentary diversion but could be an increasing distraction as things continue to develop. Too much of my online activity — both jacked and manual — has been devoted to personal interests as opposed to professional: more police reports, medical records, various news agency digests, community bulletin boards and chat rooms … cralphet, I even ran a facial recognition search to see if I could find a match for the pale woman from the club. (No luck. Closest hit was on someone from a Prince video in the Eighties, and how likely is that?) My behavior last night is alarming in just too many ways, and like it or not I can’t help but recognize the reason.

The geek. Even knowing what I do, even with all the reasons not to, I’ve let him get under my skin. He’s disaster in sneakers, that boy. Looks younger than I expected, too …

The door at the waffle place dingles as it opens; I chose a booth in the back with a clear line of vision through all the windows, but the newcomer came out of the sun and my first sight of him is as he steps inside. Three guesses who.

Okay, number one on today’s schedule: get a gun.

He aims straight for where I’m sitting, his head thrust forward like a giraffe’s and Adam’s apple bobbing in time with his steps. I do a quick internal check and, no, the omelet won’t be forcing its way up any time soon … but jeez, this is what the future of humanity rides on? Book me a flight to Venus already.

“I know you don’t want to be talking to me right now,” he’s saying in a rush as he draws level with my booth. “But I couldn’t let you just —” Words and body jar to a stop as he gets his first close view of my face. “Whoa. Um, you’ve probably picked up on this, what with me babbling it repeatedly, but have I mentioned I’m sorry?”

He thinks my visible condition is from last night’s dustup, rather than from me going etherhappy after I got back to the hotel and plugged in. Fine, let him stew. “Sorry for what?” I keep my voice flat to crush the slam of adrenaline his appearance called up. “Nearly breaking my frigging neck so you could act out your White Knight fantasies, or souring my breakfast with your lame-assed pickup lines?”

“Gee, I’ll have to go with door number one on that one. I …” He stops, sighs. “As the official West Coast distributor for Screwing Up Royally, I should be used to this by now, but, hey, somehow the exhilarating jolt of guilt and humiliation just keeps on perking away.” He sits down, uninvited, eyes earnest and intense. “Are you okay? I didn’t really have time to check, after —”

“After the bouncer yelled that the cops were on the way? Which, incidentally, is all that kept me from mashing your face with a brick.” I don’t try to hide my disdain; if anything, I ramp it up. “Did I ask for your help? Why do you men think a woman can’t possibly take care of herself?”

“It wasn’t yourself that worried me, it was the three sloping foreheads lining up to do the hokey-pokey on your skull.” Even though he fired that one right back at me, both face and voice are defensive, and I file the fact for future examination: with all his history, he still isn’t really brimming with confidence. “I mean, sure, you don’t exactly have that helpless vibe going for you, but three-to-one is pretty sweatworthy unless you’re …”

Now he hesitates. “A man?” I finish grimly.

“Uh, no, I was actually thinking ‘bionic’.” His grin is lopsided and almost convincing, and I have no doubt that he was thinking something else entirely. “I have the whole Y-chromosome thing down pat, and I wouldn’t be dumb enough to face odds like that.”

It’s too easy; I don’t say a word, just raise my eyebrows and wait. The grin flattens into something rueful, and he says, “Okay, I stand corrected, I’m every bit that dumb. So, what, if I truly respected you I’d think you’re just as brain-dead as I am?”

The laugh surprises me, but he seems to have expected it. I stuff it back down, I’m not going to be won over that easy. “You don’t know anything about me, anything at all. What made that throwdown last night any of your business?”

“To which I say again, three to one.” He has his balance back, this boy clearly has considerable experience dealing with verbal hostility. Maybe I should add some knuckles. “Look, I just wanted to give you a decent apology. I mean, I came looking for you because I know I stuck my foot in it last night. I hope you’ll let me make it up to you.”

“Yeah?” I clench my hands under the table, nails biting into my palms. “How?”

That brings him up short where accusation just made him dig in. “I didn’t … I’m, uh, I’m not … All right, so I didn’t work out the total concept in advance.” His shoulders slump a little, and this time the smile is uncertain. “If you had any stables to shovel out, would that be suitably humble?”

He’s saying all the right things, so I don’t have justification to go off on him. I stand with enough suddenness to make him jerk, but I manage to keep my voice (and fists) under control. “We’ll call it even with the apology, okay? We’re square, you get on with your plans and I’ll take care of mine.”

“Okay.” He stands, too, starts to hold out his hand and then seems to think better of it. Smart boy. “I’m, I’m Xander. Xander Harris.”

I know. “I’m thrilled,” I say, and slap a ten on the table so I can get out before I explode.

I’m not ready for this, whatever is happening to me is coming in on my blind side, but I manage to hold it together. I don’t assault anyone, I don’t destroy anything, I don’t peel the skin from my face or scream my throat raw. I go back to the room, shower till the hot water runs out, then flop down bare and dripping on top of the bed covers and sleep for another three hours.

By the time I wake up and get dressed, I’m finally ready to check the messages recorded at the front desk. Three of them: two from Harris (how the hell did he find me so quick?), the last from my second consultant, confirming this afternoon’s appointment. Good enough. I have a leisurely sumptuous lunch at a seafood house, and leave feeling mostly back to human.

I did some basic scouting of Oxnard and the surrounding area when I first arrived, but that was just to provide a reference framework while I learned more. Now, after a week of gathering information, it’s time to put it into context. I crank up my motorcycle — Honda 650, not one of the monster chrome stallions favored by Piggy and his ilk — and spend a couple of hours cruising town, integrating what I learned online with what I can see of the city, letting myself get a feel for the staging area.

Twice I see other cyclists wearing the colors of Piggy’s crew, a pair at a traffic light and three more at a small truck stop half a mile further on, drinking beer in the parking lot while their machines rest next to half a dozen others, the riders doubtless inside making the staff nervous. None of the men I see are among the three I fought last night, but I maintain a discreet distance anyhow; I don’t need additional hassle just now, and I may be a bad bitch but I’m not invincible. (Damn near, but not quite.) In fact, the numbers I’m seeing make some contingency planning look like a good idea, so I do a spot of shopping at pharmacies and health food stores, returning my purchases to the hotel room. There, after I’ve sorted and arranged various ingredients, I jack in for twenty minutes and plant some useful subroutines in the city utilities grid. That done, I check my appearance, do some touch-up with the rudimentary cosmetics available here, and head out to my afternoon appointment.

First sight of him is less than reassuring. Our meeting spot is a little outdoor café; I’ve parked the Honda around the corner to allow a more conventional approach, and he’s facing half-away from me as I come up the sidewalk. I know his record, and I was even able to get access to a couple of photos, but they don’t match what’s in front of me. Dark hair, wire-framed specs, lean features, conservative suit: all that checks, but then things start to go downhill. He’s … wispy, somehow. Thinner than I expected, but it’s more than that; his clothes are good quality, and neatly pressed, but they just don’t hang on him right, so that they look rumpled even though they’re not. His features sag, as if he’s exhausted at three in the afternoon, and one hand dangles off the edge of the glass-topped table in a position that can’t be comfortable but doesn’t seem to catch his notice. Depressed, despondent, lost … limp, like a dog that’s been kicked so many times it doesn’t bother to dodge anymore.

Sunk into some interior mopefest, he isn’t aware of me until I’m already seating myself at his table, and his lagging perceptions trigger a quick flurry of abortive responses — stand up, sit back, nod, speak, extend a hand — either stifled as too late or tangled in the trailing impulses as he struggles to catch up. At last he surrenders and stays where he is, primness falling over him like a too-thin armor. “Good afternoon,” he says with threadbare dignity. “I hope I may assume you are the person I was to meet at this hour. Whether or no, I am Wesley Wyndham-Pryce.”

“Dina Musci,” I acknowledge, crisp enough to match his attempt at formality but with a little smile to reassure and relax him. “I’ve been looking forward to consulting with you, Mr. —”

Uh-oh. His eyes sharpened as I introduced myself, and he tilts his head to take me in with a sudden attentive curiosity a long way from what I wanted from him. “Really?” he says, the single word easy and dry and coming from an entirely different man. “I was aware of your name, of course, from our brief correspondence, but to hear it pronounced …” He reflects for a moment, his eyes still holding mine, and says, “I shall presume, as a courtesy, that you’re not simply having me on.”

With a sigh I settle back in my own chair. “Nope, it’s the real deal. Not many people catch it, so it’s been awhile since I had to explain.”

“Indeed.” He’s looking less rumpled by the second, calculation flitting behind now-steady eyes. “Your parents are, perhaps, academics, or botanical professionals?”

“I wouldn’t know.” I’ve been doing some calculation of my own, and fast; my single slip, giving my name its proper pronunciation, has changed the tenor of this encounter. Not a disaster, maybe, or even necessarily a disadvantage, but I will have to alter my approach. “I never knew my parents,” I continue. “But when I finally got my records unsealed, my official name at birth genuinely was Dionaea Muscipula.” I give it a beat, then inject just the precise shade of bitterness. “No surname, and no mother or father listed. Just that.”

“Ah.” As I intended, the unsought confidence has made him a touch uncomfortable. “All the same, the choice of name would indicate some possibilities regarding your parents.”

Forget it, Wesley, you’re staying on the hook awhile. “Yeah, if either one of them had anything to do with it.” I lean across the table, encroaching on his space. “I’ve had time to give this matter some thought, Mr. Wyndham-Pryce. Whoever farmed me out for adoption put a lot of work into covering up everything about where — or who — I came from. Not a professional job, but more thorough than most professionals would have done it. There are two reasons to go at it like that: to protect someone, or to cut them off totally from their little ‘mistake’.” I show some teeth. “The cover-up went deeper than it had to. Overkill. That, and the name, tell me it was personal for whoever did it, but at the same time there’s a kind of detached distaste about it. Whoever did this didn’t much like me, or maybe just what I represented.”

“The, um …” He’s beginning to lose his recent returned poise, which was the idea; another minute and I’ll be able to steer him without any problems. He clears his throat and begins again. “The name is of course … provocative … but not overtly hostile —”

“Oh, give me a break!” I glare at him. “You knew what it was, even with my little personalized reduction: Latin for ‘Venus flytrap’. What kind of bent mind names a baby for a frigging plant — and a carnivorous plant, at that — in a language nobody speaks anymore?”

He’s down to a dither; he swallows several times, eyes darting in a near-panic at this unwelcome intimacy. A shame, almost, his scholarly confidence was a lot more attractive than the kicked-beagle look, I just didn’t need it lasering in on me. “So how’s your demonology?” I say with forced jocularity: obviously changing the subject, and he should be so eager to cooperate that he’ll leap ahead without further wondering about my background and, by extension, my motives.

Bull’s-eye, he’s on it with pathetic desperation. “I would say I have a solid grounding,” he rushes to assure me. “There are many with greater knowledge, naturally, and several with more practical experience, but I like to believe I am one of a rather small number who’ve had the opportunity to acquire both.”

“Good to hear.” I’m back in the pilot’s seat, this meeting is now mine to command. “Had any practical experience with Skira’ads?”

He ponders it, again clearly shuttling through facts and implications. “None direct, but there’s a substantial amount of data available on them.” He essays a nervous little smile. “It’s paradoxical, but their comparative harmlessness makes it markedly easier to learn about them than about more dangerous species.”

“I know they’re fairly sociable,” I prompt him. “And I’ve heard they’re fairly short-lived, for demons: what, a hundred and fifty years?”

“I believe one hundred, eighty-one to be the known record,” he says, nodding, “but one hundred, fifty would be a fair average.”

“Right. I know what they look like, and it’s said that your typical Skira’ad is about as strong as a really strong human, a little slower than human norm, and has ‘phenomenal’ endurance. Does that match your info?”

“Yes, basically,” he says after weighing it for a second. “The …” He cuts it off as a waitress stops at our table (I order a cappuccino, always wanted to see what those things tasted like, and Wesley just asks to have his tea topped off), then picks up the sentence again when she leaves. “The observation about endurance is ambiguous, but probably pertains to their ability to perform at full function without sleep for almost three weeks.”

“Mmn. Handy.”

“And costly,” he says, fussily precise. “As they approach that limit they become preternaturally intelligent and violently paranoiac. The combination has proven … problematic.” A thin smile. “Fortunately, they themselves seem to find the experience disagreeable. Otherwise they would hardly have such an innocuous reputation.”

“Okay, good, so far I’m in the field.” I lean forward again, this time engaging him without being intrusive. “But what are they like? What’s their basic nature? The essentials, I mean, the things that make them what they are?”

“Essentials,” he repeats. He steeples his fingers. “Well, to begin, Skira’ad are biphasic. Those that appear in this dimension are either better able to tolerate a linear chronology, or less bound to multiplanar temporality, than are their homebound kindred. There are theories —”

“Brake and loop back,” I tell him. “You lost me at ‘biphasic’.”

“Oh. My apologies.” For a second he seems ready to wilt, but apparently decides that explanation is a challenge he can meet. “Skira’ad originate in a reality not only separate from our own but differently structured. Some believe they might be an offshoot of the Rwasundi; like that species, their home dimension has time-flows far more intricate and far more prone to twists and intersections than our more prosaic experience with straight-line progression. Rwasundi, however, cannot visit this dimension without inducing localized chronal eddies, whereas the presence of Skira’ad produces no such distorting effects. In most cases, at any rate.”

“That makes a little more sense, thanks. Only, not criticizing here, what does it matter to us, as long as they leave their own habits behind?”

“That is quite the point.” He actually beams at me. “The most interesting characteristic of Skira’ad is that they can divorce themselves from their origins, so that their xenotemporal nature doesn’t manifest itself to us.” He tilts his head at a new thought. “Of course, it does mean they can’t be imprisoned.”

Really? “That sounds juicy. How do you mean?”

“Well, as best we can determine, Skira’ad remain in our segment of reality by suppressing some aspect of their biphasic nature. A deliberate act, at first, though it seems eventually to become automatic. A, um, a mundane comparison would be to human bladder control.” He shoots me a nervous sideways look, maybe afraid I’ll take offense at the indelicate reference. “At any rate, if a Skira’ad loses this control, or chooses to relax it, he is immediately drawn back to his home dimension. This makes it effectively impossible to hold one captive.”

The waitress returns with my cappuccino and Wesley’s refill, interjecting a natural pause into the conversation and giving me time to reflect. Not doing bad so far: from Harry Doyle I got a general sense of Skira’ad personality and behavior, and now Wesley’s given me a beginning sketch of their overall nature and how it operates on this plane. The part about them being unjailable rules out one possibility; some of the reports from this locale floated a faint suggestion that the demon in question might have been acting under coercion, but how do you strong-arm something that can blip straight back to home and Mommie the moment it stops choosing to remain? That narrows things down a bit, and soon all the uncertainties will have been checked and dismissed, and I’ll have a framework of solid facts.

Woops, 1999 to Dina: Wesley is asking a question, and I just barely catch the tail end of it. “–sity regarding your interest in this matter?” Some of the steadiness has come back into his tone, and I make a note that this guy may be a wet noodle when it comes to personal issues, but put a problem in front of him and the bloodhound starts creeping in. “My experience has been that the occult attracts four basic types of person: academic, dilettante, power-seeker, and entrepreneur.” He regards me with an expression that somehow blends a small smile and a slight frown. “Your credentials are reassuring — this assuming that they’re genuine —” (whoa, don’t show the jolt) “— but you seem a bit too practical for a dilettante, and rather young for an academic.”

He stops there, letting it hang and waiting to see how I’ll respond, and on the fly I decide to alter my legend. I’m not sure why, just seems like the thing to do, and I go with it. “The background you have on me is solid,” I tell him with the proper note of irritated confidence, “but yes, it’s a few months behind the curve when it comes to my current activities.”

“Which are …?” he prompts gently.

“Demon hunter,” I shoot back. “Freelance.” Wherever the idea came from, it’s taking hold on me, and on the whole fits me a lot better than the cover I was given. “See, your little industry summary left out a category: cleanup crew. Somebody has to go around mopping up little messes before they turn into big ones. I got tired of running support for departmental types, and decided it was more appealing to be my own boss.”

“Independent demon hunter,” he muses, trying out the sound of it. “I must say, I would hardly think a Skira’ad would be worth your attention.”

I let out a heavy sigh. “Yeah, I’m starting to think that, myself. I had reports of a Skira’ad, and it seemed worth checking out. From what I’m hearing, though, they don’t really swing the needle on the threat meter. That’s why I do research, so I don’t throw away my time on things that don’t matter that much.”

“Minor disturbances,” he says in apparent agreement, sinking into a contemplation that immediately shifts toward melancholia. “Unimportant ripples that can be safely ignored. Pleasant, I would think, to have the luxury of choosing your battles.”

I bite back a savage retort, surprised at having to and not sure what caused it. Even if I stifled the words in time, though, something must show in my face, because Wesley is right there. “Yes?” he says.

I shake it off. “Not my business,” I tell him. “And I’ve already used up enough of your time.”

He makes a little gesture to indicate our surroundings and his presence in them. “As it happens, my afternoon is free.”

I stood up during my last comment, ready to leave, and now I sit again. “I take it back,” I say. “It may be personal, I can’t really say, but it is my business, because I don’t know if what you’ve been telling me is worth a plated pockhorn.” I fix my eyes on his, forcing all the belligerence I can project, and demand, “What the hell is eating you?”

He stiffens like I just dipped him in shellac. “I beg your pardon?”

“Look, I arranged to meet you because I needed background info, and you have a good reputation as a researcher. But then I come here, and I can’t tell if I’m dealing with a competent authority on the supernatural, or a ruptured basset hound. You fade in and out from one moment to the next.” A third time I lean across the table toward him, and this one is direct challenge. “Whatever your problem is, I want to know about it. Give me a reason not to write you off as a waste.”

The rigid air of affront goes right out of him, and he slumps in the wrought iron chair. “A waste,” he repeats, ghost-soft. “Yes, that would be a fair assessment, I’d say.”

I’m not having it. “Talking to yourself, there, Wes. News flash: I’m the one who’s waiting for an explanation.”

Someone should advise him against taking up poker as a career: I can see him measuring the words it would take to chop me off cold, and I can see the moment he decides the effort isn’t worth it. He looks to me through gray sadness and, his voice quiet but firmly under control, says to me, “Your question is … not impertinent, I will grant you. You may find the circumstances of my present funk somewhat tedious, but I will explain them if you truly wish it.”

“I wish it.” I let some of the hard edge go out of my own face and voice, and add, “You don’t have to do a raw data dump, just lay out the broad outlines and I’ll let you know if I need more detail.”

“Very well.” He puts his hands on the table top, studying them with vague curiosity while he sorts his thoughts, then begins. “I am, in fact, well acquainted with what you termed the ‘cleanup’ role; as it happens, I was carefully trained to serve in a support capacity for just such persons, and for the past several months it was my responsibility to do so.” He raises his eyes to mine, and I’m surprised to see steel there as well as the expected raw wounds. “I made a poor beginning, and steadily worsened matters as I proceeded. I alienated those who were my primary charges, disregarded or underestimated others whose abilities or experience could have proven invaluable, and systematically made the wrong decision at every possible occasion.”

“Bummer.” I turn in my chair so I can lean back and stretch out my legs in front of me. “Kill anybody?”

He doesn’t react to the cheerful brutality of the question, which tells me something in itself. “People died,” he replies evenly. “I don’t believe myself to have been … directly responsible, for any of it, but there is no knowing what could have been prevented, had I proven sufficient to the task.” He pauses, mouth twisting in some flash of pain or regret, then continues with stubborn resolution. “You must understand, I spent my entire life preparing for this responsibility. It was more than a duty: it was a privilege, not only far exceeding my own deserving, but beyond any opportunity that had ever before existed. I was to have two Slayers in my charge, and on an active Hellmouth —” He looks to me. “You, erm, you know the essential facts regarding Slayers …?”

“Yeah, I know about Slayers.” Do I ever. “And your curriculum vitae made it pretty obvious you were with the Watchers.” I let my gaze dissect him with open appraisal. “Can’t say I knew you’d been the Watcher of the moment, or that you’d let the whole show go tits-up. How’d that happen?”

The last was a test, and again he doesn’t react; my man is so immersed in his own sense of shame, outside condemnation doesn’t really register. “I was sent in originally because the Council felt the situation had unacceptably deteriorated. I was to rectify that. It was made clear to me that I must exert a firm hand from the outset, stressing proper protocols and unswervingly adhering to official guidelines.” He looks into a distance that my own eyes can’t reach. “You must understand that the Council are superb in those areas where they function best. They regulate every aspect of training, of education, of introductory experience, of preparation for duties ahead. Nothing is left to chance, no smallest detail unanticipated or unguided. They have been doing this for … millennia, perhaps, and they have refined it to a scalpel edge of effectiveness. Not unexpected, then, that they might fail to emphasize that practise in the external world is … sloppier, less exact, more intuitive, all too dissimilar to the controlled circumstances that characterised every aspect of my preparation.”

Bogging down here, and I show just enough of a yawn to make the point. “I’m still with you.”

His jaw firms. “Very well. To summarise, I failed. Badly, repeatedly, and with demoralising thoroughness.” A tiny wrinkle appears between his eyes, the smallest possible visible evidence of a frown. “My very first experience in the … field of battle, if you will … set the tone for all that would follow. A colleague and I were captured; I tried to bargain, to play for time, to secure our survival until we could be rescued or find the means to effect our own escape.” Again he brings his eyes to mine; no apologies there, no excuses, just bitter self-acceptance. “I told myself that it was a ploy, no more: to exaggerate my terror, the extent to which developments had overwhelmed me, my desperation to hang onto life. It gained us a few moments, but I fear my colleague was far more convinced than were our captors.” He looks once more to his hands on the table top, withdrawing into some deep and shadowed place. “Any respect he might have been willing to grant me, vanished in those minutes of babbling pleas; nor can I be certain he was mistaken. I will never truly know how much I would have told, had the knowledge been mine to reveal. I know only that I never recovered; ever after, I questioned my fitness for the position, and at every juncture following I found that whatever attribute was needed at a given time — be it courage, judgment, leadership, or even the competence to carry out simple tasks — was one I lacked.”

Right. He’s adequately explained the gloom and listlessness, and all I want now is to leave. All the same I search for some rudimentary transition, if only as practice for a time when smooth interpersonal function might be important. “You had a bad run, I won’t argue.” I stand preliminary to departure. “I don’t see any reason to trashcan your info on the Skira’ad, though. You may need some time to pull your act together, but you’ve still got the right tools for the job.”

He actually sniffs at that. “I could debate the point, but it’s irrelevant. The Council sacked me after my disastrous showing, so the matter is no longer in my hands.”

It makes me mad, which is nothing new, everything is setting me off these days. Sometimes I swallow it, sometimes it’s too much to hold in, and sometimes — like now — I don’t bother to try. “Look, Wes, you screwed up. Big time, sounds like. And you know what? I don’t care. Wallow in it, get over it, but either way do it on your own time, because I’m busy here.”

He goes away behind those eyes. “Of course. I apologise for troubling you with my difficulties. It’s none of your concern.”

“Screw this.” I toss some bills onto the table to cover my drink. “You don’t like your life? Change it. Do something, and if that doesn’t work, do something else. At least it’ll get you moving, ’cause you sure as hell won’t accomplish anything by sitting here weeping into your crappy tea. As for me, I’m outta here.” I proceed to turn the exit line into reality.

And, forty seconds later, I’m back at the table. He refuses to show any surprise or puzzlement, and I’m equally damned if I’ll look apologetic. “What did you mean, ‘most of the time’?” I demand.

That brings an expression, a kind of lofty tolerance that doesn’t sit at all well with me. “I’m sorry, you’ll have to be somewhat more specific,” he responds.

“A little while back, you were saying something about Skira’ads being able to ramble around in our neck of the woods without their foreign origins messing up the environment. And then, like there was an i you hadn’t dotted yet, you said …” I pause to call back the exact phrase. “You said, ‘In most cases, at any rate.’ ”

“Ah. Yes, indeed.” He reflects on the words. “As I observed earlier, we have quite an amount of information and observation available regarding Skira’ad, so that a relatively rare occurrence nonetheless has substantial supporting documentation. Upon occasion, certain Skira’ad individuals have shown a tendency for their nature to exert a temporary destabilizing effect upon their immediate surroundings. Rare, as I said, but there has been speculation that the folklore regarding gremlins might have sprung from this fact.”

Gremlins. And I almost missed it. “Go on. What kind of effects, how long do they last, how bad can it get, and how would somebody make it stop?”

Now is when he could get starchy with me, after the way I talked to him before. If the thought occurs to him, it doesn’t show. “Those that do manifest this disruption faculty, seem to serve as catalysts. It isn’t a deliberate act, their very presence alters the probability ratios in their vicinity. They cannot themselves ‘turn it off’, nor to my knowledge can anyone else. Severity of results varies with individuals and circumstances, and only their departure from this plane will bring about the cessation of the phenomenon.”

“Got it. Send ’em packing to wipe out the negative vibes.” I consider what he’s told me. “Probability ratios, you said, and you mentioned gremlins. So, basically, the ones with the inline whammy cause bad luck wherever they go?”

“Not precisely.” His expression is showing something now, and I think I can read it: he’s evaluating me, weighing the fact that I can ream him out one minute and be back pumping him for more data the next. (Good luck figuring me out, Wes, the success rate on that is zero so far.) “They make the normal ‘laws of chance’ far more fluid, so that the unlikely becomes less so. It can just as easily result in good luck as bad, however; and of course, fortune for one might mean something far different for another. The effects are unpredictable, chaotic.”

I nod at the words; a big puzzle chunk just fell into place, and now I have a lot better idea what to be looking for. Wesley, I see, is watching me without expectation. Not on edge, not hyped or bummed or anything, just waiting to see what comes next.

Me, I’ve got no answers. “That should be about it,” I say. “Much obliged.” I turn, stop, sigh, turn back. “You’ve got a pretty good brain there, Wes. Ought to figure out some way to use it. None of my business, I’m just saying.”

“Thank you,” he replies, even and grave. “I shall take it under advisement.”

Fine, maybe I should have just told him to get a hobby. I give him a curt nod, and again I walk away. This time nothing calls me back.


Part III

I’m itching to get back to the hotel and start following up my latest information, but I stick to discipline, continuing my tour of the city. Not exactly a dreary task, I can soak up general impressions while I let my mind sift through what I’ve learned. The visible demographic doesn’t quite match the official information: Oxnard’s population is just under 180,000 people, 66% of it Hispanic, but as I cruise the city center I’m seeing almost as many pale faces as brown, the ratio closer to half-and-half than two-to-one; maybe most of the Latinos congregate elsewhere, or maybe this is the wrong time of day. Twice I see South Coast Area Transit buses, and the passenger mix seems to cut across all classes, not like the mass transit nightmare I’ve heard about for the larger cities. There are also more men in uniform than I had expected. The Naval base at Point Mugu only has 9,000 military staff, but somehow their presence is more widespread than their numbers would suggest; I see men in Navy whites situated all through the downtown area, taking in the sights and window shopping and indicating by word and gesture their approval of any nearby females. I draw a few whistles and invitations myself, which doesn’t really move me one way or another, but at least shows I’ll be in the running if I ever get in the mood for a relationship. The last is only an idle thought in passing, the majority of my attention is on the final tidbit I just got from Wesley.

I wasn’t given as much pre-briefing on this job as on most. I understand the reasons (steering clear of causality loops is one of the first things they drum into you), and it was a small cost for the chance to follow out my own plans, though I did a certain amount of grousing for form’s sake; but the bottom line is that I was dropped in here with only the sketchiest of instructions. Find out what I could about Skira’ads as a class. Locate the Skira’ad situated here. Learn as much as possible about that particular individual without making myself known or setting up interference patterns. More data than that, it was suggested, would pose too big a risk of priming me for upline disruption, and they’re really ticky about that kind of thing. I had my own agenda, so I accepted the terms with a small show of disgruntlement.

Now the picture is settling into shape. I’ll bet a year’s rec credit that the Skira’ad I’m supposed to track turns out to be one of the tiny minority that stirs up trouble just by walking down the street: a natural generator of exactly the type of disturbance my people are so hell-bent on making sure we never create. That would certainly explain why a minor demon would be worth the hassle and expense of setting up even such a carefully restricted operation.

I’m no slacker. I always planned to do the job while I checked out my personal sideline issues. I’m half a dozen steps closer to that now, and the third consultant I arranged, just as a backup, all of a sudden looks a lot more promising. It took me time to get moving — that’s how it works, establishing an identity and infiltrating the system and building a cash fund for social and professional lubrication (hell, just finding clothes once I was dropped on that beach!) are all things that have to be seen to before the real work can start — but I’m building up momentum maybe a couple of cycles ahead of schedule.

I swing the Honda over to the curb and pull the StarTac out of its belt clip. I already have the appointment set for tomorrow, but now that he’s no longer an afterthought I’m feeling the need to reinforce the scheduling. This could be really important, and his file doesn’t exactly depict him as one of the most reliable —

Peripheral vision is fuzzy on detail but extra-sensitive to motion. The flash I catch in the corner of my eye is guaranteed to lock my attention: jerky, urgent, well short of panic but clear over the line into agitated. I don’t look, don’t make any quick moves that would pull notice my way; I sit exactly where I am, holding the StarTac but not dialing, and in three or four seconds the subject in question has moved into my direct line of view.

Right. Had to be him. I’m not even surprised at not being surprised.

He’s moving down the sidewalk in fast, jittery strides, the whites of his eyes easily visible as he darts furtive glances toward the street. Pacing him there, in a loose triangle with its base toward him, are three members of Piggy’s crew, two riding Harleys or pretty solid imitations, the third on a cycle whose make I can’t identify but that roughly matches the others in size and style and apparent power. The engines are running barely above an idle, the deep throbbing grumble of a lion that’s not inclined to move but wants you to know he’s watching you; the riders are grinning to each other and to the geek on the sidewalk, they’re not ready to land on him yet (too much fun to watch him sweat for awhile), but they’re making it clear that he’s not getting away without the kind of hard time that usually means long-term rehab.

Two thoughts hit me at once. The first, springing both from my training and from my own preferences, is, I really don’t need this. The second is that I don’t have a choice. The CroMags wouldn’t be on him if I hadn’t inserted myself into a process already in motion; which means, at the professional level, that I’ve initiated an aberration I have to correct, and on the personal side, I owe him some help whether I like it or not.

I only wanted to see him, damn it, get a look and move on. Repeated interaction was not on my agenda. There’s no helping it, though, calling the police would bring in too many new variables. Somehow I have to pull events back into line, which means direct action.

I truly don’t like him. And I’m starting to get tired of this city, too.

That whole sequence of thought takes something like two seconds. I use another two to extrapolate their likely course for the next several minutes, then I’m parking the bike and crossing the street to the nearest automatic teller machine, pulling the card connecter from the slung handbag even as I arrive. I poke the key card into the slot and catch the leads on the trailing wires; quick glance to be sure I’m not being observed, then I position the leads in the proper spots at the base of my skull, and push.

Like always, I flinch as the metal points puncture the thickened pads culture-grown just under the surface of the skin. It doesn’t hurt, the sensory neurons there have been permanently deadened, but there’s a wrongness to the crunch of gristle being penetrated that never lessens for me no matter how many times I go through it. Unwelcome, but necessary, and a small price: in the next instant, infinity opens up to me, and I’m back where I belong.

I damp down on the euphoric rush of entry, there’s no time, I keep the channel narrow and center on the immediate task. It only takes a few moments; the ATM lets me into the bank computer, and from there I can reach out to anywhere, and I’m not really thinking at lightspeed (the data flow still has to pass through a pitiful, plodding organic brain) but the synergy between my neural network and the microchip embedded there accelerates my thought processes a thousandfold. Most of what I needed, I had set up in advance and just have to trigger; the few extra commands are instituted as quickly as I can think of them, and then it’s time to pull back, pull out, let go and get moving.

It’s jumping off a supersonic transport and landing on sandpaper skis pointing uphill, which means I take longer on the transition than I did doing my work in virtual space. Even so, before Harris and the Pig Posse finish making the corner at the end of the block I’m back on the Honda, kicking over the engine and heading out.

Away from them.

In any conflict, whatever the type, there’s one guideline you have to follow: never play fair. ‘Fair’ means by the rules, and rules means it’s a game, not a fight … but the silly fact is that most fights do have rules, inherent or taken for granted, so if you can recognize the rules, you can figure which ones to break for best advantage.

The Posse, probably without thinking of it in those terms, is following two sets of rules right now. The first is contained in their pack hierarchy: somebody messes with one of yours, you seriously mess with him. A subset of this prescribed behavior deals with the style of retribution, which in some circumstances would be an excruciating bloody spectator sport, but here and now means they’re going to drag it out, let him stew in his own helplessness while they herd him through the center of a well-populated city, only a few yards from aid and safety but unable to access either one.

The second set of rules is dictated by the immediate physical and social situation. As soon as I recognized that I might find myself back at odds with these losers, I did a fast online sweep for info on motorcycle gangs in general, with particular attention to this specific outfit. I found that, in the main, groups like this work hard at looking tough. They may occasionally tangle with outnumbered civilians (or less frequently with rival crews), but the whole mythos about them rolling into a town and riding roughshod over the citizenry is strictly movie stuff; any bunch that tried that would have everybody from the county constable to the National Guard lining the highways to hose them down with bullets. The Pig Posse’s behavior runs in subconscious acknowledgment of this need to keep a relatively low profile. They want to be noticed, and feared, but they can’t afford to cross from potential threat to immediate danger; so, they’ll chivvy the geek away from the public eye before starting in with boots and chains.

All of that gives me time, opportunity, and the beginnings of a strategy.

The Posse and their target are moving at brisk walking speed, so I easily cover two faces of the block while they’re completing one on the opposite side. I’m in no rush, I’m gauging traffic flows and patterns, measuring it against the pace of the others and the optimum timing window; in fact, I slow just a bit so Harris and I will reach the second corner more or less simultaneously. He checks for a second at the sight of yet another motorcycle about to cut across his path, then continues on toward me as I turn my face his way for a second to give him a clear look at me.

Okay: the geek, the Posse, the traffic signal, the vehicles passing through at the cross street … this is the best I’ll have to work with, so I’ll have to make it count. I pitch my voice to a level that should reach him without carrying to his pursuers, and say conversationally, “Jump on when I give the signal.”

His mouth tightens. Not looking directly my way, he gives me a half-inch nod, and steadies his steps. I’m coasting now; when I’m almost at the cross street and he’s almost at the curb, I say, “Now,” and hit the throttle.

No hesitation, you have to give the boy credit. He lands in the saddle behind me as the Honda surges forward, and we zip through the intersection at the exact moment the light facing us turns green. We caught the Posse off guard, they’ll be able to hang a right onto the street behind us as soon as a gap opens, but for now we should have a solid six-second lead. I make the most of it, jinking around the cars ahead of us and jamming the RPMs to redline.

The boy behind me hangs on with a desperate disregard that I could take personally if either of us had time to pay attention. “Oh, man,” he moans, his mouth about three inches from my ear. “Are you gonna be able to outrun ’em?”

I don’t answer in words, but my laugh is a hard bark that cuts through the scream of the motor. Your standard Harley has an 1800cc engine (I looked it up), almost three times the capacity of what I’m riding; if it was just a matter of speed, we’d be cooked before we started. My bike accelerates faster, though, and it’s a lot more agile, and I have a clear picture in my head of the city grid for this section and a feel for the traffic rhythms. That’s the hand I’m playing.

He starts to say something else, yelps and grabs tighter as I nearly cut out from under him in a hard left. It’s not fast enough to keep the Pig Posse from seeing where we went, I get a shutter-blink glimpse of them in the side mirror before we’re through the turn, but again they’ll have to find a break in the vehicle flow before they can follow. “Shut up!” I call back to him. “Hang on, keep your balance over the centerline, and shut up!”

I don’t have a hope of losing them, but I put on a show anyhow, all frantic swerves and rubber-smoking cutovers, the geek clinging to me like a lamprey and whimpering at intervals. The Posse trails me happily, so gleeful at our inability to shake them that they don’t notice we’re managing to hold our lead. Or don’t care, maybe; they have the advantage in numbers and machinery, it’s all a matter of steering us to a place where a) we can no longer dodge effectively, and b) there are no witnesses.

I’m ready for things to go wrong, I have three different contingency strategies in reserve, but the operation stays routine. By the time they notice the sirens, the sound is really close; I go straight for it, with a contemptuous little wave down my backtrail. One by one they peel off and zoom away, vanishing from my mirrors, but I don’t let up till we meet the two police cars, tearing past with lights and sound going full-blast. Then I tuck into a side street, cruise to a stop, and say flatly, “Off. Crisis over, free gropes now off the menu.”

His hands fly away from me fast as magnetic repulsion, and half a second later he’s standing away from the bike. “Okay, that was a nice, gulpalicious few minutes,” he observes. “Glad my taxes are giving our local law enforcement plenty of zippy caffeine to wash down all those doughnuts.” He tilts his head a little and looks me over. “Coincidence, right? Or did you drop a dime?”

“I’m pretty sure they were on their way to something else,” I say, looking back where we came from. (A silent alarm going off without any visible reason, for instance.) “If anybody had put in a call, it would have been about the way we were streaking through traffic, but it didn’t look like the super troopers were interested in us. Our lucky break for the day.”

“I’ll make a note to sacrifice another Twinkie to the gods of the Lucky Break,” he says, nodding agreement. Then his face settles into an exaggerated severity, and he adds, “So-o-oo, isn’t this where I chew you out for leaping to my rescue without being invited?”

As a dig it’s pretty mild, but it still increases my regard for him, just a little. I show it by curling my lip in blistering disdain. “What, you’re gonna file a complaint? I hadn’t come along, those scuzzwipes would’ve chopped you into wussy lasagna.”

“Just pointing out the oh-so-subtle parallels,” he says in return. “What is it with you women? Do you just assume a guy can’t handle himself?” There’s no heat behind the words; he’s enjoying himself, watching to see if he can get under my skin.

No chance. “Wait, don’t tell me,” I say. “I know the next part: something about three to one, wasn’t it?”

He shakes his head, easy and amiable. “Well, how about that?” he says. “You remember the line. And there I thought you were too busy troweling on the righteous indignation to pay any attention to my incisive reasoning.”

“I didn’t give it much credit, but I did notice,” I fire back. “Just like I notice you’re trying to slide away from the fact that I pulled you out of crap soup while you were wishing you could scream loud enough for your daddy to hear you.”

Something jerks in his eyes when I say “daddy” (most people wouldn’t notice, but hey, I’ve got issues of my own), but smile and voice don’t carry whatever it is. “Could be,” he says gently. “But ya never knows, does ya? I’ve been up against gang members before; I’m still here, and they …” Disarming grin, calculated twinkle in the eye. “They took up horticulture.”

He’s got tone and tempo perfect, so out of respect I give him the line. “Horticulture?”

“Intensive study of root systems,” he says, straight-faced. “From underneath.”

It’s a damned good turn of phrase, but I act like my laugh is in reaction to the attached claim. “You took out a gang, on your own? What, were they standing over a trapdoor?”

“Fast moving and clean living,” he tells me. “One was strategy, one was luck, one was pure terror and adrenaline, and the last one, the leader, I stared him down and convinced him to take his nefarious evilness to somebody else’s playground.”

I can feel my face harden; this story is new to me, but it has an authentic feel to it, and I’m damned if I’ll be impressed. “Hip-hip for you,” I sneer. “Bet you trot the story out for your best buddies whenever life makes you its butt-monkey.”

He regards me with raised eyebrows. “ ‘Butt-monkey?’ No, I’ve never told anybody about that.” He frowns. “I don’t even know why I told you. There’s just something …” He stops, seconds from death; if he says, There’s something special about you, I absolutely will rip out his windpipe. Oblivious, he gives his head a sharp shake. “It’s weird. You really seem familiar. I mean, sure, we never met before yesterday, but I feel like I ought to know you, I just can’t say why.”

“Women don’t stick in your memory that long, huh?” I can’t help myself; the antagonism is genuine, but once again it’s outside my control.

He caught my mood change when it hit, I could see it in the little muscles around his eyes and mouth, the shift and squaring of his shoulders; now he just gives it up, and sighs. “Always thought it was the other way around, myself. Anyway, thanks for helping. You didn’t have to, and I really appreciate it. In, you know, a manly way.”

He keeps doing that, and it just makes me more angry: why can’t he act in a manner that’ll let me hate him properly? Moving chaos, I called him before, and his effect on me has my emotions caroming in every direction like an overcharged pinball. I tell him to go stuff it, except what comes out is, “Which way were you headed before those leather-jockeys picked you up?” He looks confused at the sudden switchback (join the club, Harris!), and I add defensively, “It’s just a ride, okay? It doesn’t have to mean we’re engaged.”

This time he sits an extra inch back of me as I drive, resting his hands on my shoulders rather than hanging on normally. We don’t talk. I follow a route that won’t cross the path we took here, swinging wide of where I figure we’d be most likely to run into the Posse again, so the return trip is substantially longer. When I’m roughly parallel to where I first saw him, I ask, “Where from here?”

“Um, right at the light there, straight for four-five blocks, then bear right again at the little cul-de-sac. That’ll put me close enough.”

Either from sheer contrariness or from some impulse I can’t trace, I keep going once I reach the designated point, asking, “Which one?”

He indicates a two-story house halfway down the block: older style, modest but based on what was in vogue just before the 20th century came piling in. He’s off the bike the moment I ease to a stop, again steering well away from unnecessary touch. “Decent digs,” I observe. (What, am I trying to stretch out the interaction here? That would be just too pathetic, so I add a barb to the next words.) “I had you figured for a basement somewhere.”

“I wish,” he says with a shake of his head. “I get a room at a weekly rate that leaves my wallet bleeding but not quite dead, and I’m supposed to keep any showers to five minutes or less.” Some of the open, ironic smile is back. “Be it ever so humble, you can always find someplace humbler.”

The humor that comes so easily to him is insidious and dangerous; I don’t want to like this character, and I can’t afford to let myself start. “SoCal has a mild climate,” I point out. “You can always find a heating grate to sleep on, and a trash bag to keep the rain off.”

“And don’t think that doesn’t feature heavily in my long-term retirement plan,” he replies with unruffled cheer. “Along with a big sign that says WILL WORK FOR CHEET-OHS.”

Okay, that’s it, I’ll never be able to hold my own in verbal sparring while the crazy stuff inside me keeps clipping me at the ankles. I’m about to cut it off fast, make an exit and find a nice thick tree to brain myself against, when a sharp bang! makes me spin and drop. Overreaction, it’s just a backfire from an antique Saturn passing at the start of the block, I place the sound in a fifth of a second and am already straightening up when Harris grabs me, once again trying to shove me behind him in that automatic protective reflex. I throw him back in a spasm of total blind fury, snarling, “Hands off, Zeppo Boy —!”

Quick as it happens, it’s still like some awful slow-motion rail smash. I can feel the words before they leave my lips, and I know I can’t say them, but the part of me that talks is on an entirely different track from the part that thinks, and I’m helpless to stop it from coming out. Still, though it’s nothing like my jacked-in speed, my mind is running at a rate that only barely corresponds to thought as we know it: not a linear process, but huge chunks of raw concept slamming through like freight trucks. Even as I’m smacking him away, I realize three things in instant slipstream succession.

First, I’ve stuck my head in it up to the shoulders, there’s no remotely normal explanation for my possessing the trivial, arcane knowledge contained in the single pejorative reference. Second, he probably won’t catch it if I talk quick enough and produce a sufficient volume of masking diversion, he’s not stupid but his is not the most focused brain on the continent. Third, I can’t risk it, my idiot mouth has created a problem I’ll have to attack pre-emptively.

I’ve screwed up. I have to do something to fix it. It has to be now.

Realization and act are simultaneous. I stagger, yanking my hand away from his (our first skin-to-skin contact, I think I can use that as a selling point), and stare at him like he just sprouted horns. “Vampires?” I say, breathing the word as if I can barely get it out. “Freaking vampires? And … zombies, witches, werewolves, mummies —?” It would be good if my face were white, but I can’t actually control my autonomic reactions, so I bug out my eyes and let my jaw sag and shrink back away from him. “I thought I’d seen some weird-assed stuff in Philly, but this … godamighty, what are you?” I ‘pull myself together’, narrowing my eyes and making a show of reestablishing control. “And … and just what the hell is a Slayer, anyway?”

He takes it blank-faced; either he’s slow on the uptake, or nothing shows until he’s ready to let it out. “Okay, that wasn’t what I was expecting,” he murmurs at last. “Let’s see: Christopher Walken, Dead Zone, vision flashes whenever he touched somebody …” His gaze sharpens. “You’re psychic?”

I shake my head, the perfect figure of anger and embarrassment. “I don’t know, I just see things sometimes. Not very often, and nowhere near as strong as that one.” I glare at him, tough chick trying to use aggression to grab back the initiative. “All that mess I saw, was it the real deal, or do you just do drugs by the boatload?”

He grins at that. “I come from a town that, if you read the local news, would have to be the PCP capital of North America. But no, none for me, unless you count pizza as a mind-altering substance.”

“Yeah, right. Look, I gotta go.” I back away, making a show of avoiding further contact. “Nothing personal, I just … I gotta go.”

He doesn’t say anything as I remount the bike and pull out, he just stands watching. Once I’ve put a couple of blocks between us, I do a fast respool of my goof and instant repair, and all my judgment tells me I covered myself solid.

It doesn’t change the seriousness of my blunder. I’m out of control where he’s concerned, a disaster in process. I can’t afford any more of that, it’s gone too far already. I have to cut all my links to him: no more, ever, under any circumstances. Done, gone, over, finito.

Should be easy, right? I never wanted to deal with him one-on-one in the first place.

No problem. No problem. I’m good now.


Part IV

I’m enchanted by the gulls. Not many where I come from, and the few I’ve seen were sad, bedraggled scavengers, nothing like the keening flock that surrounds me now. They can almost hover, I didn’t know that, they bob in the air around me like a huge heaving swarm of squalling gnats, and snatch crackers from my fingers until the last of the packet is gone.

My lunch companion watches with amusement and interest as I return to the little table we’ve taken at the wharf, three or four hopefuls still following on the off-chance of further largesse. “You’re subverting them, you know,” he says mildly. “Disrupting their natural patterns, making them dependent on a rather recent bobble in the evolutionary progression.”

“All that?” I answer, and resume my seat across from him. “And here I thought I was just giving them some crackers.”

“No disapproval intended,” he says, and takes a long pull from the imported ale I’m paying for. “I’m all for shaking the tree now and then; I simply like to be aware of the status, effects and implications.” He studies the inch of ale remaining in the thick-walled glass mug, and favors me with a somewhat oily smile that no doubt is supposed to be ingratiating. “Are you sure I can’t persuade you …?”

“Not a chance.” I keep my voice firm. “That’s two for you; if you want more, you can cover it yourself. And if you suck down enough that it cuts the quality of the info you’re providing, it could affect your fee.”

“Take more than this to get me properly pissed,” he says, and drains that last inch. “But I do appreciate a businesslike attitude.”

Now, this probably says a lot about me, if I could just figure out what it means: where Harry Doyle and I subtly rubbed each other the wrong way, and Wesley Wyndham-Pryce left me annoyed and impatient, I’ve been taking real pleasure from Ethan Rayne’s company since the moment he arrived at the little dockside restaurant. He has the most honest face I’ve ever seen on a human being; it’s fascinating, every line, crease and fold marking out a detailed map of dissipation, debauchery, happy embrace of every possible form of dissolute pleasure. Looking at that face is like studying the murals at Pompeii, the ones they won’t let children see on the public tours. Not even the dimmest mind could mistake this for a nice man, but he’s unquestionably distinctive.

His personality is just as striking. The man is totally suited to his chosen role: in the same way a shark is a perfect predator, or a mole a perfect burrower, Ethan Rayne is a perfect cheerful amoral unrepentant scoundrel. “Rotter,” he’d call it, and with pride. It’s refreshing and entertaining and even relaxing in a way, so long as I don’t trust him for a fraction of a second.

Also, and here’s where it starts to get strange, there definitely has been a subtext running through our conversation so far. I don’t know if he just does it automatically with every woman who crosses his path, or if he picked up on something that made him think I might be approachable, but Ethan has been making a run on me — low-key, indirect, but unmistakable — ever since we identified ourselves to one another; and I, while not sending out any green-light signals, haven’t been shutting him down, either. Okay, sure, to some extent I’m getting a kick out of it as just a contributing element in the overall routine, but it’s still unusual for me.

Maybe his attitude explains some of it. Where I come from, getting-acquainted patter usually starts off, “Het, les, or bi?” It’s a great time-saver, as is my standard answer: “Nil.” (Which isn’t entirely accurate. I have a keen interest in sex, I’m just not about to let anybody get too close; and, if you’ve already ruled out any kind of personal connection, what makes people preferable to utensils?) Ethan, though, is unhesitatingly and unabashedly willing to trot in little circles trailing one wing, lay a pebble at my feet, whatever it takes to improve his chances, and there really is something insidiously flattering about having such total, single-minded attention aimed in my direction.

“Raises an intriguing point, though,” Ethan is continuing, eyes crinkled with amusement. “One is supposed to bridle when asked to subjugate his art to the crass demands of commercial necessity; I wonder where the line is to be drawn when it’s a matter of cash versus appetite?” He shoves the mug away with a sigh. “Prickly question. I suppose I should err on the side of caution till I work it out. Shall we proceed, then?”

“If you’re ready.” Originally I had meant to have him available as a general resource, an alternative perspective if one was needed, but recent developments have shifted my aim. “I understand you’re a worshipper of chaos.”

His lips purse while he runs the statement through his mind. “ ‘Worship’ is a bit strong, I would think. A withered, cynical soul such as mine could hardly dredge up so much fervor. But, yes, chaos is an ideal for which I have a pronounced affinity.”

“Nice to have that clarified.” His hand has been oh so carefully drifting toward me across the table, and I withdraw mine with callous deliberation. Flattering or no, this is business. “As an idealist, maybe you can tell me what’s the appeal, exactly.”

“Appeal,” Ethan repeats, and now his thoughtfulness seems to go deeper than affectation. “Part of it’s sheer contrariness, I suppose. People persist in seeing chaos as a negative; one tires of repeatedly pointing out its beneficial aspects.”

He looks to me expectantly, so I play along. “Humor me,” I say. “Explain it just one more time.”

“Very well.” He gathers himself in his chair, ready to launch into what is clearly a favorite subject, his earlier claim notwithstanding. “In casual minds, there’s a tendency to believe chaos is the same as entropy. Not at all; entropy is the gradual sinking of the universe into an undifferentiated state, lukewarm and bland and thoroughly uninteresting. It’s an overall trend, present wherever you look … until you bring in Life, large L. Organic processes run counter to this humdrum winding-down; Life persists in becoming more rather than less complex, bumping upslope in little evolutionary jolts. Not without some reluctance, however: entropy opposes these upstarts, and it requires constant stimulation — radiation, climate changes, ecological upheaval, competition from other sources — to keep them moving.

“When intelligence enters the picture, the complexity takes another spike. Organizational trends outstrip biological processes by quantum levels, but you can still see the same dynamic at work. A group will grow to a certain point and then stabilize, not only ceasing progress but actively resisting any change in its status.”

He rubs his hands, beaming at me out of that wrecked face. “That’s where I come in, myself and lesser lights in the same constellation. Biology or sociology, it doesn’t matter, these evolutionary bumps don’t simply occur on their own, they come about in response to outside stimulus, they change only when change is imposed on them. Without us, life and society would stultify, ossify, stagnate, fall in on itself. The function we serve isn’t just useful, it’s necessary.”

I’m halfway convinced even though I’m ready to break out laughing. Ethan may be a hell of an actor — probably is — but I think he genuinely does believe what he’s saying. Just enough of a smile behind the words to make it seem like he’s trying to con me and I’m not buying, I prompt, “So you’re a public benefactor.”

His return smile is immediate and apparently spontaneous. “Only by coincidence,” he tells me with villainous relish. “I do it because I enjoy it. I’d do it if I was destroying civilization instead of helping it advance, because it’s the best fun there is.”

I do something with my eyebrows. “Really? Sweet-talk a girl, why don’t you.”

He laughs and rubs a finger along his cheek, his eyes on mine. “No discourtesy intended, poppet. It’s just … there’s a game the vulgarian Gates folds in with all those elephantine operating systems bundles of his: FreeCell, they call it, child’s play in terms of technique and strategy. You know the one I mean?”

I don’t, but I’m not about to admit it. “Go on.”

I tried to mask my impatience, but he must have felt it, the same way I feel his amusement deepen. “Well, I’ve played it out of boredom, when I was utterly desperate for diversion and no other activity was at hand. Child’s play, as I said … but you know, there’s an internal structure that does pique some tiny twinge of aesthetics. I’ll find myself delaying what could be a winning sequence of moves, shifting and arranging the files of cards on the screen to construct a particular setup, so that at the proper moment I can set the whole thing collapsing in on itself at once with a single touch.” His smile now is reminiscent, almost dreamy, and not slightly alarming to someone who knows any of his history. “Chaos is far more vigorous than that, far less structured, but the same principle pertains. Wherever I find myself, I watch constantly for that needle-fine pivot point in the flow of mundane events, that whisper of a moment, when a single strategic nudge can explode the orderly processes and produce something entirely new, unpredictable, pregnant with promise and possibility.”

I already knew the man had to be complex, even contradictory, but I still wasn’t expecting anything like this. “You construct this elaborate organization of facts and events, just so you can tear it down.”

He narrows one eye, thinking, and says, “No, more a matter of shifting and reworking existing structures. But the end point is the same, I grant you: push a button, and bang! Down she comes.” He leers at me. “Dismayed?”

“No, just really surprised.” Sometime in the last minute or so his hand has come to rest over mine; I let him keep it there, maybe if his attention is divided it’ll take him longer to start lying to me just for the hell of it. “I never expected someone in your line of work to be so frapping methodical.”

“That’s because you still have a pedestrian understanding of the subject,” he says, turning my hand over and stroking my palm with his forefinger. “Chaos is more than mere randomness, it’s vibrant disorder. Putting it in motion takes time and attention; do it right, and you get all kinds of clash and clangor and pretty sparks …” His voice trails off, and his gaze is suddenly hard and keen. “Hullo, what’s this, then?”

I’ve heard that sound before, it comes when I’ve screwed things clear through, but for the life of me I can’t figure where this one springs from. “Excuse me? Do we have a bugtrack here?”

“Your lifeline,” he tells me, and now his finger is deliberately tracing across my palm instead of searching for some obscure erogenous zone. “It’s snarled, as if it’s trying to loop back in on itself. That just doesn’t bloody happen.” His eyes come up to mine, and the magnetism I felt before has quintupled, but with a flavor of the same intellectual excitement I got from Wesley. “I’ve seen something like this before, once only, when I was performing a spot of unsolicited body art a couple of years back. Didn’t know what it meant, and still don’t, but if you’re anything like the freak case she was —”

Forget it. I pull my hand back, sharpening my voice. “We’re losing our place here, aren’t we? The deal was, I pay, you talk.”

“Indeed it was.” His smile is speculative, like a wolf studying a caribou and trying to decide does he want flank steak or rack o’ ribs. “Emphasis on was. I’m not above rustling up the odd bit of boodle in an idle hour, but now you’ve tweaked my professional interest. Where do you come from, my girl?”

I’m already on my feet. “Enjoy your beer, Rayne. Drown in it, in fact.”

He flutters negligent fingers at me. “Temperance, O fierce beauty. I know I’ve no hold on you, but I do still have something you want.” The smile deepens, becoming enormously more attractive and dangerous. “What do you say, hmm? Quid pro quo?”

I can actually feel my eyes glaze over. “Which who huh?”

A corner of his mouth tightens, but the eyes remain gently amused. “Even trade, sweetling. I answer one of your questions, you answer one of mine. Back and forth, tit for tat. Need I explain further?”

Instinct tells me to throw him off the wharf and leg it for the horizon, but I push that back. I don’t really need much from him, and there’s no way he can learn anything substantive from just a couple of questions. I sit back down, and say, “Fine. But I get the first question, and if I think you’re dancing around the answer, you’ll get exactly the same kind of runaround from me. Tat for tit.”

“And we have a bargain.” He sits back, all too satisfied for my comfort. “If you’re to be first, then, choose your question.”

Normally I would edge around the subject, but I’m not about to lose any ammunition when I have a solid target. “You’re talking about fomenting disorder as a personal thrill, almost an achievement in aesthetics. What if there were such a thing as a random chaos generator? How would you, or somebody like you, react to that?”

He’s frowning now, as if I just said something blasphemous. “Not very well, I’m afraid, not if they share my sensibilities.” He measures me with crinkled brow, and I know he’s calculating how much he has to say if he wants to get good info when it’s his turn. “It’d be like cheating at Solitaire: not something I’d object to in principle, but it takes all the fun out of the game, you only do it if there’s something other — and larger — to be gained.” A tilt of his head. “Acceptable answer?”

It is, actually; I don’t want to let him loose easy, but I can’t think of anything reasonably contained in the question that he didn’t cover. “It’ll do. So, your turn: what do you want to know?”

“Ah, here you have the advantage of me.” His tone is rueful, though everything else about him still projects unrelenting focus. “You’ve had time to think through your major points of interest, and had already acquired valuable data from me before we reached an agreement. I, on the other hand, am confronted with a cloud of mystery, and must expend my currency carefully. Where to begin?” His eyes sweep over me. “Best, I fancy, to first evaluate the facts at my disposal. Across the table from me is what appears to be a Caucasian female of good health and considerable fitness.” He stops, weighs that, and corrects himself. “No, make that a high degree of fitness, I would wager there are several Olympic athletes she might make uneasy. Continuing: her physiognomy, mannerisms, and style of dress suggest an age in the mid-twenties, certainly no more than twenty-six and probably nearer twenty-four …” Again the measured pause, and his smile broadens. “But, you know, there is a je ne sais quois about her, an indefinable hint of someone trying to seem older. Given skin firmness and the vein patterns on the backs of her hands, I believe I’m looking at a young lady of perhaps nineteen years.”

He has me and we both know it, but I’m not giving anything away for free. “What, you want to see my ID?”

Voice and expression are bland, smug. “Well, now, I wonder if I should count that as one of her questions. It would put me two up on her … but no, I believe scrupulous fairness will serve me better just now.” He’s scored again, and again I don’t let it show, and again he knows anyhow. “So. Her speech is colloquial American, but I can’t pin down the accent, and some of the turns of phrasing ring a bit queer. Makes me consider that she might be some other nationality entirely, indoctrinated with sufficient thoroughness to allow her to pass as a native …” This time, when he pauses, I realize what’s happening: he’s tossing out prompts, and reading my reactions. I’m no soft touch, but some people are so sensitive to subliminal cues that it’s impossible to hide much from them. Looks like Ethan is a practiced example, or maybe he’s just on my wavelength somehow. “No, I think not,” he’s saying. “Not even the Australians can project that particular marriage of arrogance and naiveté, though they come closer than anyone else. I’ll mark her down as American, but there’s still a difference to be considered.”

“Sooner or later you have to actually ask something,” I say flatly, toning down the belligerence and being careful to make it a statement. He hasn’t hit anything important, but his insight is still unnerving.

“In time,” he agrees cheerfully, and then goes right back on track. “She handles her business negotiations with a casual firmness that indicates she has no wish to waste money, but also no hesitation in paying what something truly is worth. At the same time, I see nothing of the inbred insouciance that comes from growing up with no shortage of cash. The young lady has more than sufficient funds, then, but she wasn’t born to it. So either she’s being bankrolled — meaning she isn’t so independent as she wishes people to believe — or she’s acquired it herself. If the latter, her tender years and aggressive demeanor would move me to suspect some unconventional means of personal financing. Criminal, most likely.”

Another bull’s