by Jamie Wyman
I shook my head. “No. We have to get Mrs. M to the hospital.”
“I am a hospital,” the woman snapped as she breezed by me. With a quick motion, she was out the door and billowing down the hall.
“Wow,” I said. “She’s…um…”
“Yeah,” Flynn breathed. “She really is.”
My legs went the way of jelly, and I wobbled down to the floor. Flynn squatted beside me, still pressing the towel to my side. Heat radiated off his skin, and I could smell… Well, he smelled like sex. Musky, sweaty, pheromone-laden, up-all-night sex laced with a soft floral perfume.
This time the lurch from my stomach had little to do with my pain.
“So this is awkward,” I murmured breathlessly.
“What happened, Cat?”
I put on the lightest, most casual tone I could muster. “Oh, you know. Creepy dude attacked me like something out of a Terminator flick. Mrs. M got involved. Wackiness ensued.”
“Hardly a time to joke,” he snarled.
“Can we do this sometime when I’m not in danger of bleeding out?” It took me a while to get the words out between draughts of breath. “Seriously, I don’t feel so hot.”
Flynn’s youthful brow furrowed with consternation, but he didn’t push the issue. “Gotcha. Karma will be here soon.”
I briefly wondered if this was his way of saying he’d get payback for my walking in on him mid-coitus.
“Karma?” I asked.
“Yeah, my…well, my girlfriend.”
Ah. Her.
Still wrapped in Flynn’s sheet, the girlfriend in question raced into the room holding a bottle of water, a washcloth, and a couple of paper packets that looked like large bandages.
“All right,” she said, kneeling in front of me. “Flynn, get the jacket and shirt off her while I prep.”
If I’d had blood to spare I’m sure I would’ve blushed furiously. Though it felt ooky, I let Flynn slip off my jacket. The shirt was a little more difficult as raising my arm resulted in firework bursts of pain. I spouted off another barrage of colorful metaphors and insults to Flynn’s parentage before settling into a breathing pattern not unlike a birthing mother. Karma, meanwhile, ripped open one of the packages and produced a thin square of translucent purple film.
“Out of my way,” she barked to Flynn.
“What are you doing?” I asked, worried. “What is that?”
She didn’t answer. Flynn slid away from me, and Karma took his place at my side. She pressed the film to my wound. For an instant, my flank burned hot then went completely numb. While I should’ve been relieved, the lack of sensation sparked further panic.
“Shit! I can’t feel my side. I can’t feel it!”
“That’s the point,” Karma assured me, turning her attention to the other packet. “That means you won’t feel this. And trust me, that’s a good thing.”
While Flynn moved to my right side and took my hand in his, Karma threw the second wrapper to the floor. She held something in her hand about the same size and shape as a microscope specimen slide. Like the purple square she’d just shoved against my side, this appeared to be made of a thin, flexible film. Within the membrane, silvery filaments formed patterns resembling a circuit board.
Tired and bleeding on the floor, sure, but in my heart I’m a curious technomancing monkey. I took a moment to read the pattern in the electronic filigree. Something hummed with tension inside the film. Inert though it was, the object spoke of preparedness and tingled in my mind. Like a flashing cursor, it told me that it merely awaited the proper command.
That sensation reminded me of Flynn’s inventions. My one-shot teleporter, for instance.
A spell lurked inside the thin slide. But a spell for what?
“Take a deep breath,” Karma said.
I couldn’t feel the pain of it, but my body resisted the inhalation. Karma’s hand slapped against my numb wound, and the slide shot into my abdomen.
“The hell?!” I blurted out with a blast of air.
Karma ignored me as she withdrew a needle from a sterile pack. She used the tip not on me, but on herself, drawing blood from the heel of her right hand. With a heavy red bubble forming just below her thumb, Karma thrust her palm onto the gash in my flank. She closed her eyes and whispered something I couldn’t hear over the sound of my own panic. When I would have jerked away, her left hand clamped down on my shoulder with the weight of a steam engine. Her eyes flew open, and my panic shifted straight to humbled awe.
Her irises, which I would’ve sworn on a stack of UNIX manuals had been brown, glowed purple, like a field of electrified violets. A similar light radiated through the veins of her right arm and ebbed down through her fingers.
And into me.
My body jerked with the sudden flow of power. I recognized this energy. Like hearing the strains of my favorite song or booting up my personal computer, I knew this stuff pouring from Karma’s hand to my blood. I knew it the same way I understood the dancing patterns of light on Las Vegas Boulevard.
Karma used technomancy.
Though I was certainly surprised, the familiarity of that power eased my mind. Not that I could’ve done anything about it, really. I sat there, slack-jawed and wide-eyed, as Karma’s magic careened through my body. On a cellular level, her energy bonded with mine. Purple sparks rocketed around my mind, spreading out in pyrotechnic bursts that made my cells tingle. Every neuron lit up, sending messages at inhuman speeds through my nervous system. I could almost hear it, like tapping Morse code, in the pulses that flashed down my spine.
Karma’s voice whispered through my blood, Heal.
Atoms bonded to her voice, cells marching to her orders.
“Almost done,” she said aloud. “I promise. Just a few more seconds.”
In those seconds, my whole body fizzed and percolated with her magic, frothing to heed her command. Meanwhile, my mind could only sit back and experience it. So many times I had used technomancy to open a lock, turn on a light, fix a computer. But I had never, until that moment with Karma, been on the receiving end of such magic. Not like this.
I had a sudden wave of empathy for all those machines I’d infused with my will. But before I could burst out with hysterical laughter, Karma distracted me by breaking contact. Though a residue of her magic still remained within me, I felt my own power—visualized it in my signature white light—absorbing it. Appropriating her will to perform the requisite tasks.
She took her hand away from my side but continued to hold onto my other shoulder. Looking down, I saw the filaments in the implant emitting a faint aura from beneath a thin layer of new, pink skin.
Gobsmacked, I met Karma’s ephemeral stare. “How?” I said with a shudder.
She winked at me. “Magic.”
The purple faded from her eyes, and her hand slid heavily off my shoulder. As she rocked back, Flynn made to catch her, but she steadied herself with one hand against the floor, waving him off with the other.
“I’m okay,” she said, catching her breath. “Give me a minute to recoup and I’ll go check the landlady.”
Flynn’s fingers still grazed my hand, but his body leaned to Karma as he asked, “Are you sure?”
Her eyelids fluttered as she gave him a tired but confident smile. “I’ve got this, babe.”
What an odd tableau we must have made. Me, sitting on the floor with my back to the wall in a bra and jeans. Karma, wrapped in a sheet. The two of us panting and covered in various fluids. And Flynn between us in hastily pulled-on pants.
Yeah. What a trio.
I flopped an arm in what I hoped was understood as equal parts thanks and a call for assistance in getting off my ass. “I gotta…”
“Sleep,” Karma finished for me. “You need to rest.”
I chuffed with a weak impression of laughter. “Not in that bed. And Mrs. M is in mine.”
“Speaking of the divine Mrs. M…” Karma groaned as she got to her feet, hands clutching the sheet to
her chest. “Hon, can you help her up and lead the way? I want to make sure they’re both okay before I fall down and go thud.”
Flynn’s slantwise smile was a blend of affection and rueful understanding that their athletics for the evening were done. “Sure.” He steadied me with his strong arms and eased me to my feet. Together, we shuffled down the hall to my room where I flopped—gently—onto the free side of the bed.
Mrs. M didn’t stir. She snored in little hiccups, punctuated by the occasional whimper. My eyelids—suddenly weighed down by teeny, tiny elephants—closed, bringing on a quite welcome darkness.
“Sleep, Cat,” Flynn murmured reassuringly. “We’ll take care of Mrs. M.”
I tried to protest, but my mouth didn’t seem to want to work. And words? What the hell were they? Even listening to Karma and Flynn soon proved futile as I lost my ability to comprehend anything but sweet, sweet void.
Chapter Four
“Unintended”
Waking up wasn’t nearly as awesome as falling asleep had been. Without any sort of stop in the limbo between dreams and daylight, I emerged from my pseudocoma fully aware. And that sucked. A billion little hurts made themselves known while my side practically screamed. My temples throbbed in time with my pulse, and regardless of the fact that my room at YmFy resided somewhere far below the surface of the earth, light blazed bright as high noon.
Squinting against the lights, I tapped into my well of power. The bulbs dimmed to a reasonable, candlelight wattage as my will coursed into the wiring. Without the supernova lights, I took in the room. My only company was a piece of paper on the pillow next to mine. Flynn’s slanting scrawl urged me to find him when I woke up.
Well, I thought, no time like the present.
After freshening up and putting on a clean shirt, I padded down to Flynn’s room only to find it empty.
At least no one is naked this time, I consoled myself. Or tried to. It didn’t help, honestly. Remembering Flynn and his lady getting their groove on, the walls glowing, colors shifting in time with their gyrations…
I shook the image out of my head the way a dog shakes off after a bath. The more I focused on the heebie-jeebies I got thinking of Flynn mid-coitus, the more I could ignore the guilt of not knowing he had a girlfriend. Had I really been such a shit friend that I hadn’t noticed my pseudobrother was dating?
“He’s gone,” Karma said from behind me.
I jumped and, once again, smashed my back against his doorknob. I twisted my face in both discomfort and annoyance before turning to look at her.
Clothes suited her, making her appear lovelier than she had when just wrapped in a sheet. Karma’s massive puff of hair surrounded her face in corkscrew curls, this time bubblegum pink. She wore the same kind of black “bondage” pants that Flynn favored: wide-legged, black as Sabbath, and covered in zippers and pockets. Chains jingled at her full hips, and a Jolly Roger—complete with a pink bow over its skull—stretched its grin from atop her voluptuous breasts. The laces of her combat boots even matched her hair perfectly.
Something new joined the brew in my stomach—jealousy. She made that outfit work like I never could. Not that it was particularly my style, but still. With that short waist, those dangerously smooth curves, and that amazing hair…
“Wait. Wasn’t…wasn’t your hair purple last night?” I asked.
She smiled, and mischief lit up her chocolate eyes. Without a word, she dragged her fingers through those thick curls, and as I watched, her tresses shifted from pink to purple.
“Okay,” I said, awed. “That’s just about the coolest thing I’ve seen since the chick in Total Recall changed her nail polish with a pen.”
“That’s totally where I got the idea!” She shook her mane and the purple changed back to the vibrant pink. Her voice sped up, and soon she spoke with the same high soprano reserved for Disney hummingbirds jazzed on Pixy Stix. “See these piercings? They’re cybernetic devices. I use them to control the color of my hair and nails. A little bit of power, a thought, and boom! I can have whatever shade I want, whenever. No chemicals. No frying. No problem.”
I’m pretty sure I changed colors then, too. Straight from my pale-ass white to acidic green with envy.
“I tried changing my eye color a few times,” she went on, beaming with pride. “But that didn’t work out so well. Ended up blind for a week.”
“You…you do that with technomagic?”
“Among other things,” Karma said with a nod to my side. “I excel at body interface.”
“I’m sure you do,” I snorted. It came out way snarkier than I’d intended. Okay, maybe it would be more accurate to say that I couldn’t clamp down on the words before they flew out of my mouth.
The smile left her face.
I began the quick, humiliated work of backpedaling. “I mean, that was pretty impressive last night. The thing…with my side…and stuff. I’m Cat, by the way. Don’t know if we were actually introduced.”
“I know who you are,” she said, her tone cool.
I winced, knowing I’d screwed up. Karma passed me and moved into Flynn’s room. She picked up a bag from the floor and started shoving things into it.
“So, um…you said Flynn was gone?” I asked.
“Yeah, he took your landlady home.”
“Is Mrs. M okay?”
A knowing smile hiked up the corner of Karma’s mouth. “Of course she is. And her hip is better than ever. She’ll be running marathons before you know it.”
I let out a sigh of relief. “Thank you,” I said honestly. “That Fraggle means a lot to me.”
“Seems a sweet old lady. Mind if I ask what happened?”
I shifted uneasily, uncertain how much to tell her. Being a technomancer, Karma clearly knew that the world was more than it seemed. Leaving out the part about Loki’s call and the dead girl on the tow truck, I told Karma about Mr. Grey and his knives.
When I described the things he’d done with Mrs. M’s walker, the dart, and the cables I’d tried to wield against him, Karma nodded. “Ferromage. Metal bender.”
I mentally smacked myself in the forehead for not realizing it sooner. I’d seen all sorts of elemental magic users, but none who worked with such fluid grace as Francis Grey. And the shadow thing had thrown me for a loop.
As if reading my mind, Karma said, “The shadow thing is weird as hell, though. That can’t mean anything good.”
“Not something ferromancers often dabble in, I take it?”
“Not really. This guy sounds like he’s multi-classing. He’s got more than one focus. Or something else is going on. What did you say he wanted with you?”
“A veil.”
“And you have no idea what he’s talking about?”
“None,” I said, plopping down in Flynn’s overstuffed armchair. “He said it had been stolen. Seemed to think I could give him the veil or the thief.”
“Can you?”
I shook my head. “No bloody clue what he was talking about. Even if I did, I wouldn’t help him. The veil—whatever it is—sure as shit doesn’t belong to this guy.”
“You’re sure?”
“Just the way he talked about it. I listened to Eri— um, my old boss bullshit enough that I can spot someone hedging around the truth.”
“I’ll trust your judgment.” She smiled. “Speaking of liars and thieves, you on any jobs for Asgard these days? Maybe that’s what this Grey guy is talking about?”
Eyes wide, I gaped at her as though she’d sprouted a second head covered in blue scales.
“And just how the hell did you know—”
“Flynn told me,” she said. “And I know the rune on your arm.”
I simmered, suddenly very angry at my friend. He had no right to tell people my business, especially since my business involved deities with few scruples when it came to making my life hell. What the shit? He knew I couldn’t make my job status public knowledge! And he just told this chick?
He had no idea who she was, who she might work for.
Other than her piercings, I didn’t see any body art. No tattoos that might serve as a brand of servitude. I bit my tongue and glared at Karma, wary of her. “You attached to anyone I might know?”
She shook those pink curls. “Nope. I’m just a freelance technomage who happens to pay attention. I’m lucky enough to not know anyone in the immortal set. Just mages.”
I filed that away, but it didn’t ease my mind at all. When Flynn got back, he and I were going to have a long chat about boundaries.
“So,” she asked, “could Loki be the thief this Grey guy was looking for?”
I rolled my eyes. Why did she have to be pretty and smart?!
“Loki called me in last night,” I said reluctantly, “but it’s got nothing to do with a veil.”
Karma’s gaze sparkled with curiosity. “Seriously? You actually work for Loki? The Loki? Okay, I thought Flynn was bullshitting me, but you’re honestly in league with him?”
I couldn’t help but smile at her naive joy. “Yeah, I am.”
“Tell me the truth,” she said slyly. “Does he look like the British guy in those superhero movies?”
“Sadly, no.”
“Damn. What did he ask you to do? If I can pry, that is.”
I waved her off. Loki himself had said I could use my resources. I’d already planned on asking Flynn for some help on the case… Maybe I could let Karma in on it? Three technomancers could surely have this thing wrapped up by dinner, right?
Blowing out a sigh, I said, “I have to find out who killed this woman.”
I told Karma about how Muriel had been crucified on the back of a truck, left out in the middle of nowhere, and secreted off by Loki. My voice cracked over the details of her matted, bloodstained hair and her plain features, but letting those words spill out of my mouth released some of the tension in my head. Karma listened, absorbing it all. As I spoke, her rich skin grew ashen, her face drawn.
I pulled out Muriel’s cell phone. “So, I’ve got to find a murderer and the only piece to the puzzle I have is this.”