Black Box Inc.

by Jake Bible

  “Why the control trance?” Lassa asked. “That’s really odd.”

  “Unless he’s working for the Fae. He said he had something planned and had come here to find me,” I said. “Was anyone else there besides Travis and Iris?”

  No answer.

  “Hey!” I yelled. “Back me! You’re up.”

  “Oh, right, sorry,” Back Chase said. “What was the question?”

  “Was anyone else there?” I asked again.

  “Yeah. The girl,” Back Chase said.

  “We know Iris was there. Who else?”

  “I wasn’t talking about Iris. I was talking about the girl. The other girl.”

  “Well, that wasn’t clear before,” Lassa said.

  “What other girl?” I asked. “Who was she?”

  “How would I know? I was dying, wasn’t I?” Back Chase whined. “Didn’t see her, anyway. Only heard her voice.”

  “Could you recognize the voice?” I asked. “This is important, pal.”

  “There doesn’t seem to be much sympathy for my dying,” Back Chase said.

  “Want to die again?” I replied.

  “No, I can’t recognize the voice,” Back Chase said with a huff. “I was dying. And I’m shit with voices.”

  “This is all very interesting,” Teresa said. “We continue on as planned. I’d prefer to get information directly from the Fae than hunt a shapeshifter that is obviously acting in a deceitful manner.” She faced Sharon. “However, I believe you will need to put your business work on hold and focus squarely on fetching this key. We do need that key from police evidence. It must be the one that goes to this box with Ms. Penn inside. I have filed a motion, but the police have already started their delay tactics. I believe between you and my associates, you can wear them down and retrieve the key. The key is the proprietary property of Black Box Inc., and they cannot prove that—”

  “No,” I said.

  “Excuse me?” Teresa asked. “Did you say no?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “That key isn’t the one to the box with Iris.”

  “And how do you know that for sure?” Teresa asked.

  “I know. The key’s for something else,” I said. “I can feel it.”

  “He can feel it,” Back Chase said.

  “Shut up,” I growled.

  “Pissy, much?”

  “Harper? Punch it.”

  “Gladly,” Harper said.

  “I’ll shut up,” Back Chase squeaked.

  “Then where is the correct key?” Teresa asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Aspen was pretty confident he had Iris. Maybe he has the key. Back me?”

  “What?”

  “Does the Fae killer have the key?”

  “No idea, me me. I was gutted, exsanguinated, and used as trance fodder. Your guess is as good as mine. Almost literally.”

  “Why would Travis give Aspen the key?” Lassa asked.

  “Who cares about why?” Harper said.

  “I do,” I said.

  “Regardless of this Travis’s involvement, the key in evidence may very well not be what I believe it to be, but it is better to be safe than sorry,” Teresa said, pushing forward with business. “Listen to the lawyer, please, Mr. Lawter.”

  I held up my hands. “That’s what we pay you for.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “So we’re still on for the road trip to the faerie dimension?” Lassa asked.

  “Yes,” Teresa said.

  “Good, because my guy with the truck will be here at four,” Lassa said. “We should get packed.”

  10

  BY TRUCK, LASSA meant a flatbed tow truck. It wouldn’t be used to transport us to the faerie dimension, that’s what the limo was for, but we did need it to move the huge Dim box holding the limo from the parking garage to the portal. The borders between dimensions may have been wide open, but that didn’t mean you could cross over wherever you wanted. You had to use a portal. Which meant we were vulnerable for ambush. Or I was vulnerable since I was the most likely target.

  But, if we’re inside a huge Dim box, then nothing can touch us. The limo, and everyone inside, was protected. It may have been overkill, but I’d woken up in a twelve-pint pool of blood, so overkill wasn’t exactly out of the norm. Like Teresa was fond of saying, better safe than sorry. And Harper was twitchy enough as it was. Her security instincts were in overdrive.

  Once the Dim box was at the portal, I could open it up and the limo driver would take us from there. A slight window of chance to be attacked, but we’re talking a second at the most. Then the limo driver drives us on in, and we’re transported to the faerie dimension via the portal.

  I opened the limo’s sunroof and stood up, my upper body outside the car while Harper held onto my legs. I sometimes got vertigo when working the Dim on a large scale. Sharon was standing out in the parking garage, her hands clasped and eyes wide and expectant. I could barely see her over the sides I’d already created.

  “Take notes,” she said.

  “I’m not taking notes.”

  “Chase, we need notes. We’ve talked about expanding the business. Secure travel for private parties could be very lucrative.”

  “It’s also exhausting as shit.”

  “But lucrative.”

  I stared at her for a second, then turned my attention to the truck.

  “Okay, Shar. I’ll take notes.” I gave her a quick wave and a fake smile. I wasn’t going to take notes.

  “We’re good,” Lassa said as he hopped over the upper edge of the black box wall and landed on the trunk of the limo. No way to open the limo doors with the Dim walls surrounding the vehicle. He gave me an okay sign. “Driver is paid and tag affixed so the portal is dialed in for the faerie dimension when we get there.”

  “It’s secure?” I asked. “Because if the destination tag comes off while we’re driving, then things get shitty when we pop out somewhere other than faerie land.”

  “Try not to call it that while we’re there,” Harper said from below me. “Names like that piss them off.”

  “We wouldn’t want that,” I said.

  “You sure about this?” Lassa asked as he clambered over the roof and sat next to me by the sunroof. “You haven’t built anything this big in a while and you’re not exactly in top shape.”

  He glanced at my back and the passenger I was carrying.

  “I’m good,” I replied, patting his shoulder. “Get in and we can be on our way.”

  “Move, dude,” he said.

  I ducked back into the limo and got out of the way so he could squeeze his bulk through the sunroof. Once he was inside and seated, I stood back up and raised my hands. The smoke started to pour freely and form a lid. In seconds, Asheville was gone and nothing but an impossible blackness was above me.

  “Away we go,” I said as I dropped back into the limo and shut the sunroof.

  We felt nothing. Being in a box made of Dim is like being in a sensory-deprivation tank, except none of your senses were deprived, you simply had no idea there was anything happening outside the box. The world could be destroyed, and we’d be blissfully unaware.

  “Starving,” I said right as Lassa handed me a bucket of fried chicken and a six-pack of beer.

  “Is that wise?” Teresa asked.

  “I won’t even come close to getting drunk off six beers,” I said as I tore into a chicken leg, then washed the greasy meat down with an entire bottle of beer. “I’ll need about three kegs to get buzzed from a job this size. Chill.”

  “No, I meant for you to be stinking of beer and fried chicken when we are meeting Daphne,” Teresa said. “I am well aware of your metabolism.”

  “That’s what the cherry pie is for,” I
said, smiling around a chicken thigh. “It cleanses the palate and makes me smell like ChapStick.”

  “Are you an eight-year-old girl?” Teresa asked.

  “Lemon custard,” Lassa said.

  “What?” I snapped. “I hate lemon custard.”

  “I know, but that’s what you have,” Lassa said. “You have to be specific with gnomes. They’re big fans of lemon custard.”

  “That is true,” Teresa said. “To them it could be compared to crack minus the soul-sucking devolution into the sordid underbelly of society.”

  “They’re so short, they probably already see the underbelly,” I said, killing my third beer.

  “That’s kind of racist, dude,” Lassa said.

  “It’s more shortist, I’d say,” I replied. “And I don’t really care, either way. Lemon-custard-loving bastards.”

  He rolled his eyes. Teresa turned from me to stare out the window. At nothing. At a wall of black. Talk was done.

  I shrugged and continued eating. Once I’d polished off the chicken and beer, I started in on a bag of popcorn about the size of a garbage bag. The gnomes came through on that one.

  “Want some?” I asked Harper, offering her the bag. She didn’t respond.

  She was lost in her own head and obviously wanted to be left alone, so I crawled across the seats to sit by her and bug her.

  “You love popcorn,” I said.

  “That’s microwave,” she replied. “Microwave popcorn is a lie.”

  “A tasty lie,” I said. “Have some.”

  She jammed a hand into the bag and took out a fistful of popcorn. She shoved that into her mouth and chewed and chewed, eyeing me the whole time until she swallowed.

  “Mmm,” she said. “Yummy.”

  “Smart-ass,” I said. I ate a few more pieces, then reluctantly set the bag aside. “What’s up, Harp?”

  “It’s not a good idea for me to be going to the faerie dimension,” Harper said. She patted her pocket. “Even with my Magnum.”

  “Teresa has everything smoothed over,” I said. “Whatever grudge the Fae have against you is on hold until all of this business is concluded. She called in some favors.”

  “Large favors,” Teresa said without turning away from the window. “Billable favors.”

  “Daphne doesn’t care about favors,” Harper said. “She’ll probably kill me as soon as we set foot in that dimension.”

  “I doubt that,” Teresa said. “Not unless she wants an extradimensional war the likes of which she has never seen.”

  “She’s a couple million years old,” I said. “You sure you can make that bet?”

  “See, even you have doubts,” Harper said.

  “Of course I have doubts,” I replied. “I’m the human here without any special training. You’re like a goddamn ninja. I’m only a guy that can make smoke boxes so rich nerds can hide their comic book collections from their ex-wives. I always have doubts.”

  “You’ve got Dim rods, dude,” Lassa said. “Those are ninja. Very ninja.”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” I said, then shrugged. “But, yeah, they are cool.”

  “Balls out cool,” Lassa said.

  “I’ve told you some of what I went through, but not even close to all of it,” Harper said, not as impressed by my Dim rods. “None of you know what might be coming.”

  My gut clenched, and I had to struggle to keep my cool. It hurt like a son of a bitch, and I wished I knew why. Wasn’t fear. It was that pain that had started yesterday. I caught Harper eyeing me, but she turned away too fast for me to see what that look was about.

  “Do you know something about all this that we don’t know?” I asked as the pain subsided.

  That shook Harper even though she tried not to show it. I shared a quick look with Lassa. Teresa took notice and focused her attention on Harper.

  “Ms. Kyles? Do you know something about this that we don’t know?” Teresa asked. Her banshee eyes flared the brightest blue I’d ever seen them. “You do, don’t you?”

  “No,” Harper said.

  “Very well,” Teresa said and nodded, returning her gaze to the nothing outside the limo’s window.

  “Is it that Littlestick guy?” I asked. “You two used to have something, right? I know mixing business with exes gets complicated.”

  “Yes, that’s it,” Harper said.

  No, it wasn’t, but I was done interrogating a friend. If Harper didn’t want to share what was up, then that was her right. As long as her holding back didn’t put us in jeopardy.

  Teresa’s phone buzzed. She had a text.

  “What the hell?” I exclaimed and pointed at her as she started typing. “That can’t happen. Nothing gets in or out of a box.”

  “That makes zero sense,” Lassa said. “Then how do we breathe? Do you even have a clue how your ability works?”

  “No,” I admitted. “I don’t know, pal, I just do. I just do.”

  “I understand what Mr. Lawter means,” Teresa said. “Except, I purchased an Ultimate Signal policy for the firm’s phone plan. Nothing can stop a text. Nothing.”

  “That’s goddamn creepy,” I said.

  “Tell me about it,” Lassa agreed.

  Her phone whooshed, and she put it away inside her ever-flowing banshee lawyer power gown.

  A chime sounded. The sound was part of a special hex that we’d had worked up by a wizard friend of Lassa’s. The hex timed our delivery so I knew when to open the Dim box.

  “I’m up,” I said and held out my hands.

  The Dim disappeared all around the limo. The Teamsters had handled the delivery perfectly, and we were already unloaded at the vortex point. The ghoul driver put the car into gear and drove us through the portal that looked like a mix between a black hole and a rainbow swirl of paint going down a drain.

  Teresa lowered the divider between us and the driver.

  “How long will we be traveling?” she asked.

  The ghoul driver turned his head and gave us a sharp, black-toothed grin.

  “Only a few minutes, mum,” he said. “As long as there ain’t no hang-ups at customs, we’ll be to the faerie vortex point right quick.”

  “Is that like a cockney accent? What is that?” Lassa asked.

  “Don’t answer him,” Teresa said and raised the divider.

  “Really, I kinda have to know what accent that was,” Lassa said. “It’s going to bug me.”

  “It is hard enough for ghouls to fit in,” Teresa said. “There is no need to make it worse for them.”

  “Drop it, pal,” I said.

  “It’s really going to bug me,” Lassa repeated.

  “Bigger fish to fry,” I said.

  “Fine,” he grumbled. “Whatever.”

  A few minutes later, the black-hole-meets-swirling-rainbow effect outside the limo became a brilliant bright blue. We’d arrived in the faerie dimension.

  Teresa pressed a button, and her window rolled down. A smiling faerie of indeterminate age and sex leaned against the windowsill and tipped his or her hat at the banshee.

  “Oh, well, hello there,” he or she said. No way to tell from the voice, either. “Are we here for some sightseeing?”

  Teresa handed him or her a set of papers. He or she frowned at the action, but took the papers and started reading them over.

  “Well, I’m afraid we have a bit of a problem here, folks,” he or she said. He tapped his or her finger on the top right corner of the first paper and leaned into the window. “Looks like you’ve got your dates mixed up.”

  “Excuse me?” Teresa replied, incredulous. “I think not. Perhaps we could get someone a little more . . . literate to look them over.”

  “Oy, no need to be rude,” he or she sna
pped. “I can bloody well read, thank you very much.”

  The divider between the front and the back of the limo lowered. “Excuse me, mum?” the ghoul asked. “I have a gentleman here—”