They’d gotten two hotel rooms and unpacked after the much-less-eventful visit to hippie-descended December. She hadn’t been home, but her apartment had been in a much fancier part of town than K-Stag’s. Grace had said something about how the name made the person, but Liam ignored her.
Liam left December a note.
“What time is the ferry to Wales?” Sal asked.
“Eight in the morning,” he groaned.
“Then we should get some sleep.”
“Right,” he said, and got up. He straightened his shirt and smiled at her. “To the bar, then?”
“Naturally,” she said.
• • •
Sal woke up with her mouth tasting like fur and her head pounding. Grace dressed, looking as if she had been up for hours. She handed Sal an orange sports drink.
“What—God,” Sal said as her headache spiked.
“What God, yeah,” Grace said. She sat on her bed, which was already made. She should know she didn’t have to make a bed in a hotel room. “You and Liam shared stories last night of lost loves. We learned of the tragic story of December, and the tragic story of Ryan.”
“Ryan?” Sal said. Ryan had been her unrequited high school crush.
“Yes,” Grace said dryly. “I finally got you two poured into bed around three.”
“Thanks,” Sal muttered. “What time is it?”
“It’s six thirty. We have to leave for the ferry in half an hour.”
“Shit. Is Liam awake?”
“I pounded on his door before I got you up. He swore at me, so I know he’s conscious.”
Sal trudged by her icy friend to the bathroom, opening the sports drink as she went. What had gotten into her last night? She remembered stories, and some tears, and some disdainful looks from Grace. She remembered leaning on Grace on the way back to the room, and telling her how much she appreciated her.
She groaned as she turned on the full force of the hot water. She’d gone all I love you, man to Grace. How embarrassing.
With Tylenol and thirty-two ounces of orange electrolytes in her belly, the clean and refreshed Sal felt much better. They made it to the ferry just in time, and secured a cushy booth by the window so they could watch the gloomy Irish sky turn into gloomy Welsh sky.
“Did I tell you about Imogen?” Liam asked, waking Sal out of a doze.
“I honestly don’t remember,” Sal said, rubbing her head.
“You didn’t. She’s got to be the only one we didn’t hear about last night,” Grace said.
“She was wild. If she wanted you, she’d take you. Anywhere. Everywhere.”
“I don’t know whether to ask if she was ever arrested for sexual assault, or plagued with STDs,” Sal said.
“Arrested for indecent exposure many times,” Liam said, smiling. Then he sobered. “Then, of course, she liked a DJ’s spinning so much that she just fucked him right then and there in the club.”
“Charming,” Grace said. “Can’t wait to meet her.”
“And the woman had stock in a condom company. Or she should have,” Liam said. “As crazy as she was, I never knew her to ride bareback. If she’d gotten knocked up then there went her lifestyle.”
“I don’t understand how one carefully plans to protect a wild, hedonistic lifestyle,” Sal said. “Seems like someone ready to fuck a stranger in a club isn’t the kind to be prepared.”
“She was always prepared in case she wanted to fuck someone in a club,” Liam said. “Girl was uninhibited.” He chuckled, “This one time, we—” He slowed down when he saw the look on Grace’s face. “Never mind.”
“No, go on. I’m going to walk around the ferry,” Grace said, and got up.
Sal watched her go. “I don’t know what’s gotten into her, unless she wasn’t up for seeing us get sloppy drunk last night.” She paused, considering. “Which is probably the case.”
Liam stared at her. “You don’t remember?”
Sal shook her head. “I remember bits and pieces. What the hell did we drink?”
“High-gravity beer,” he said. “I’ll never drink again.”
“Until the next time,” Sal agreed. “But what did I do?”
“You started talking about an ex-girlfriend, Amy, telling us how you met, your sex life, how you broke up, everything. Grace just clammed up and got really uncomfortable. I didn’t know you were gay either—you certainly didn’t seem gay when we were together.”
“Ohhh …” Sal said, understanding. “I’m not gay, I’m bisexual. I thought you knew that?”
Liam shrugged. “Maybe I wasn’t so attentive a lover. I already apologized for that, right?”
“Right,” Sal said absently.
“Although I think I would have remembered that,” he continued. “Anyway, after that you started pushing Grace for her history, asking her who she had dated, who she had fallen for in her time. She wouldn’t answer any of the questions, and finally said it was time for us to go to bed, and she dragged us upstairs.”
“Guess I got too personal,” Sal said. She shrugged. “So are you going to go all weird on me now?”
“Nah,” he said. “I’m just glad we aren’t dating anymore. I would probably say some things I would definitely regret.”
“How self-examining of you,” she said.
4.
Grace remained quiet through the six-hour train trip to Bath, and Sal napped on and off to kill the last of her hangover.
“Hey, if I said anything last night to make you uncomfortable, I’m sorry,” Sal said as they got off the train, when Liam was out of earshot.
“You didn’t,” Grace said flatly.
“Really? Cause you have been avoiding me all day,” Sal said. “I figured you were mad about something.”
“I’m not,” Grace answered, and walked away.
Sal shook her head. What had she said?
• • •
When they got to the outside of the Bath flat where Liam had tracked his ex, Imogen, Grace finally spoke again.
“What exactly are you expecting here?” she asked. “More plates and vases thrown at you?”
“I hope to let her know I’m very sorry for hurting her and for getting her involved with the Network, and to tell her I’ve changed,” Liam said, almost as if he were reciting something.
“And you just think she’ll forgive you?” Grace asked.
“Probably not. K-Stag didn’t. But that’s not the point. I can only do what I have control over. I control whether I apologize or not. She controls whether she accepts it or not.”
Grace sent a skeptical look toward Sal.
“We had a sergeant in my old precinct who went through AA,” Sal explained. “Step nine was very uncomfortable, but we were all glad she acknowledged everything she had done to make our jobs hell for so many years. Even if Imogen doesn’t forgive him right now, she may feel better about it later.”
Grace shrugged and Liam knocked on the door.
It opened so violently that Liam jumped back and bumped into Grace. The small woman in the doorway began shouting at them.
“I’ll have your bloody rent by next week, ya cunt, you can’t expect me to get anything done if you’re knocking on my fucking door every hour!” she shouted, and then recognized Liam. “Oh. You. You’re not here from my landlord are you?”
Liam looked baffled. “No, I just wanted to come see you,” he said. He looked over his shoulder. “Is your landlord bothering you?”
She grabbed Liam’s arm and pulled him inside the flat. Grace and Sal managed to make it in after him before Imogen slammed and locked the door behind them.
“He keeps bothering me about the rent,” she said, straightening and patting her curly brown hair. “I told him I just had to get some work done and then I could get it to him.”
Sal looked her up and down. Imogen wore a short frilly robe over a white corset, white stockings, and heels, and impressive cleavage peeked out of the opening of the corset. “Did we, ah, interrupt y
our work?”
Imogen put her hands on her hips, making no effort to cover herself further. “Who the hell’s this?”
“This is Sal, and that’s Grace over there,” Liam said, pointing at Grace, who was studying the photos on the wall. “They’re my friends.”
Imogen sighed and rolled her eyes. It was clear what she thought of the women Liam was friends with. “What do you want, Liam? You want money? I got nothing.”
Grace sat on a love seat and leaned back, watching them. Liam took a deep breath and then let it out. “Imogen. I wanted to say I was sorry. I got you involved with the Network, I broke your heart, and I was a wanker. I’m trying to make up for some things I’ve done and I wanted to find you and apologize.”
“You’re sorry? You’re sorry?” Imogen said, and then she took a deep breath and seemed to swell to twice her size.
Here we go, thought Sal.
• • •
They met in the Archives, Menchú settling into the cracked leather couch and Asanti sitting at her desk.
“What do you want to know?” he said plainly.
She smiled at him, lips closed, as if she knew something he didn’t. “I’m glad you’re finally willing to trust me with this.”
He raised his hands. “It wasn’t about you. It was me. I see this being—Hannah, it calls itself now—as …” He groped for the words.
“As a personal failure?” Asanti suggested, her face sympathetic.
He didn’t like how she came up with that so quickly, but he nodded. “Yes. Admitting it existed meant digging up some still-rotting corpses. I didn’t want to uncover the smell.”
“How descriptive,” she said. She pulled out a notebook. “So you are absolutely sure, even though this one is an adult woman and not a young boy, this is the same being as the one you encountered during the slaughter of your village?”
She said it so matter-of-factly. He winced. “Yes. It’s the eyes. You don’t forget those eyes.”
She looked thoughtful. “No, I suppose you wouldn’t. So it’s unlikely that the being driving that monster is the same as the one inside Sal’s brother.”
“Is it?” Menchú asked bitterly. He wasn’t so sure about Perry, but was usually polite to him out of respect for Sal.
“Yes,” she said. “So what is this one capable of?”
“It’s capable of handling armies,” he said. “Slaughtering innocents. It manipulates life on this plane as if it’s kneading bread.”
“But why?” she asked. “What motivates it? And Perry?”
He thought for a moment, not saying all of the obvious answers, like “They’re God-damned demons straight from hell who want to destroy us.” If that were entirely true, they would have destroyed everything by now.
“It mentioned something about an experiment,” Menchú finally said, reaching for the elusive memory.
Asanti snapped her head up. “An experiment? What kind?”
“I don’t know. It felt like an aside. Like she let something slip.”
“An experiment. Interesting word,” she mused, writing something down. “So, you don’t know her motivation. But she’s here. And she’s interested in you.” Menchú shook his head. Asanti’s eyebrows raised. “No?”
“No. It’s interested in us.”
• • •
Liam sat patiently while Imogen let him have it. She blamed him for everything from the sorry state of her current bank account to the case of crabs she’d gotten the previous year (which seemed like an exaggeration to Sal, since they were last together a few years ago, according to Liam).
To his credit, Liam’s temper didn’t flare and he didn’t argue. He was actually taking this twelve-step thing seriously. He sat through all the abuse she threw at him.
When she was done, she stood, panting, and then said, “Well, aren’t you going to give some of my own back at me?”
He shook his head. “No. I said what I needed to say. I’m sorry. Now it’s your turn.”
“Huh.”
“So what have you been doing with yourself?” he asked conversationally.
“Well my credit is shot and I can’t get a job. I’m making money as a webcam girl,” she said.
“Oh, that’s why …” Sal said, and gestured vaguely at Imogen’s outfit. She sat down next to Grace.
“No, I just hang about the house like this,” Imogen said archly.
“Whatever makes you comfortable,” Sal said. “I don’t judge.”
Imogen rolled her eyes. “Listen, Liam. You’re good with the tech. You wanna make things right with me? Come figure out what’s up with my cam. It’s older and doesn’t always work right.”
Liam stood immediately. “I’d be delighted to.”
She led him into the bedroom, with a little too much sway in her hips for Sal’s comfort.
• • •
Grace sat back on the love seat with Sal beside her. She shifted irritably. Imogen kept her flat too warm—Grace supposed she would need to as well if she had to be in a nightie all the time—and she could feel sweat begin to bead on her forehead.
After Imogen led Liam to the bedroom, Sal sighed. “Do you think he’ll be all right in there?”
“I don’t know. Liam may be doing a special kind of apologizing. Something I don’t want to see,” Grace said.
Sal snickered. “He’s doing a good job, though,” she said. “He’s mature. I’m impressed.”
“That’s true,” Grace said dimly.
Sal sat next to her in jeans and a white button-down shirt, the top button casually undone, a cross warming against the skin on her chest. Grace focused on it, hearing Imogen and Liam talking in the bedroom, but not thinking much about it.
Sal caught her. She gave a small smile. “What’s up?” she asked.
Grace swallowed and glanced away, annoyed. “Nothing,” she said.
Sal frowned. She halfway stood as if she wanted to go into the bedroom to check on Liam. Then she settled back on the love seat, where her shoulder leaned against Grace.
Grace moved away, feeling as if she had been shocked. She shifted on the seat to put her back to the couch arm, opening herself up to Sal, who leaned into her. Now they half-reclined on the love seat, Sal leaning against Grace’s chest, her hair tickling Grace’s nose. Grace froze, unsure of what to do. She was trapped.
She didn’t feel trapped, though. She had the strength to easily move away, but Sal wasn’t a monster to pick up and throw across the room.
“Are you comfortable?” she heard herself ask.
“Very,” Sal said, and shifted to lean further into Grace’s chest.
Grace didn’t know where to put her hands. She finally put one arm across the back of the love seat and the other over Sal’s arm, her hand resting lightly on Sal’s wrist.
Sal looked at Grace’s hand on her wrist and reached over with her other hand and twined her fingers with Grace’s. Grace barely breathed as she saw their two hands clasped, so casually, as if it meant nothing, as if there weren’t two other people in the room with them.
There were two other people in the room with them. Or at least there had been. Where were the other two people? Sal cuddled up to Grace even further and made a soft, comfortable noise, and Grace’s other arm went around her, her forearm going across Sal’s chest, her hand touching the open collar of her shirt, her fingertips tentatively teasing the collar open a bit more so they could rest on the suddenly hot skin underneath.
Sal’s breath hitched raggedly and she looked up at Grace. Her lips parted, and her other hand came up to take the back of Grace’s head and pull downward.
Then Liam screamed from the bedroom.
Grace could apologize to Sal later, but for now the reality was that Sal was on the floor, probably bruised, definitely annoyed, and Grace was across the room, bursting into the bedroom.
Inside was an amateur porn star’s boudoir. A bed sat on the far side of the room, with black satin sheets and a pristine white bedspread. Light diff
users sat in the corners, casting light all around the room and nearly eliminating shadows. Beside the bed was an honest-to-God fainting couch, upon which Liam writhed. He was held by nothing and apparently attacked by nothing, but he screamed as if he were on fire.
Beside the door, facing the bed, was a video camera and tripod, currently filming.
Imogen was on the bed, kneeling, legs spread lewdly, her tongue out at the camera. She paid no attention to Liam, but instead began to do what amateur porn stars do on webcams.
The camera was plugged into a laptop that sat on a small desk. Grace saw that the feed was live and already had hundreds of viewers.
“Don’t touch that,” Imogen panted. She’d removed her robe and was only in a corset, panties, and stockings. “I need it.”
Grace had seen enough. She started forward, figuring she could take Imogen without burning any of her candle. She could definitely punch a porn star.
Liam managed to pull himself off the couch and place himself between Imogen and Grace. “No,” he panted. “Don’t hurt her.”
Grace frowned. “What the hell is wrong with you? What is she doing to you? Are you mind controlled?”
Liam gritted his teeth, clearly still in considerable pain. “N-no. She’s using my existing connection to the Network to boost her signal. It’s letting her feed off the men who are watching. Like a succubus.” He glanced over his shoulder at his ex-lover, who was still trying to writhe for the camera, using the intruders as peekaboo props instead of people blocking her from her viewers. “I made her this way.”
“How?” Sal asked from the doorway. She massaged her hip and glared at Grace.
“She, ah, liked to make love on camera,” he said, rubbing the back of his head. “So we would connect and log on.”
“Could you get more disgusting?” Grace asked.
Liam collapsed, and Imogen was down another scrap of clothing.
“Fight evil now, insult Liam later,” Sal said.
“Ah, God, forgive me, Imogen!” Liam cried.
Sal went to the computer and typed a little. “It would be good if he could snap out of whatever spell he’s under and fix this,” she muttered. “All I know how to do is pull the damn thing out of the wall.”
Grace grabbed the laptop and the camera and yanked both, severing their connection and taking part of the wall with it. A wave of energy came out of the computer and knocked Sal and Grace back, and the apartment was swallowed in darkness.
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