by Jake Bible
“Guys? Company vote?” I asked.
“We use my transportation contacts,” Lassa said.
“Naturally,” the One Guy replied. “Otherwise, you have the DEX entanglement issue all over again.”
“I’m in charge of every aspect of security,” Harper said. “No exceptions. While we’re in transit, you do what I say, when I say it.”
The One Guy thought about that then nodded. “I can agree to that as long as there is a caveat that you will protect me as well as you protect your friends.”
“We’ll hammer down the details, but yeah,” Harper replied. “I can live with that.”
“Shar?” I asked.
She was busy crunching numbers on her calculator. When she was done she sighed and looked up. “We cannot do it for less than six hundred thousand dollars. Plus expenses.”
The One Guy laughed hard as his form began to fade.
“You’re running out of time, asshead,” I said.
“Yes. That number is acceptable. High, but acceptable. Hard to save a dime if I’m dead, now is it?”
“So three votes yes?” I asked. My co-workers nodded.
“Do I get a vote?” Travis asked.
“Dude,” Lassa said.
“No. You’re right,” Travis replied and held up his hands. “Not an employee. Never mind.”
“I vote yes too,” I said, rolling my eyes at Travis then focusing on the One Guy. “If you agree to one more item.”
“Which is?” the One Guy asked, still slowing fading away.
“Payment like Sharon said and you owe us a life debt,” I replied. “One for the company as a whole, not me. That way any of us can ask for the debt to be paid when needed.”
The One Guy didn’t laugh that time. Life debts were serious mojo. Travis was a case in point. A love bond was maybe the only magic that was stronger. And that was debatable.
The One Guy glared at me. Hard. He was almost completely transparent.
“Fine,” he snarled. “A life debt owed to Black Box Inc.”
“Then we have a deal,” I said.
He was gone as soon as I said the words.
We sat there for a minute in silence, each of us absorbing what we’d agreed to.
Then I shook my head and stood up.
“Food,” I said. “Shar? Will you call in delivery?”
“Chinese?” she asked. “I think that and pizza are all that’ll be open.”
“Works for me,” I said as Sharon picked up the office phone on her desk. “Lassa? Call some trolls. We’ll need a truck that’s secure, but won’t attract attention on the road.”
“Exactly. I know a guy that can hook us up with that,” Lassa said and was already dialing before the words were finished leaving his mouth.
“Harper?”
“I’ll want to see what truck Lassa wrangles for us, but I have more than a few ideas on security,” she said.
“Not only weapons. We need hexes. Plenty of them. We’re dealing with someone or something powerful enough to kill a bunch of kobolds and summon blood ghasts. We may not be able to protect against blood ghasts, but we can throw up some hexes and protect against whoever is behind them.”
“Yeah, Chase, I know. Been sitting right here.”
“Sorry. I’m thinking out loud.”
“I have security covered. I’ll call in a couple favors from that hillbilly mage clan out by Maggie Valley. They’ve been playing with mountain magic since before the Civil War. Those good ol’ boys will know how to keep whoever is summoning blood ghasts off our asses.”
“Perfect.” I picked up Sharon’s cell phone from my desk.
“Who are you calling?”
“Ducheré.”
“Hold on.” Lassa stopped talking and covered the phone with his hand. “Dude? You think that’s a good idea?”
“We have to take the One Guy to DC. Without Ducheré, we don’t know where we’re going. I’ll make sure she keeps it off books until we hand him over, but she’s going to have to be told. Informing her isn’t a contract.”
Lassa looked at Harper; Harper shrugged.
“We won’t tell her the route, only we’re on the way,” Harper said. “It may be handy to have her as backup if we need it. A little US of A firepower in case things go south on the road.”
“You’re security,” Lassa said and went back to talking to his transportation contact.
I brought up Ducheré’s number, but paused before hitting call, a sly smile creeping across my face.
“What?” Harper asked me.
“Feels too easy.”
“What does?”
“Getting rid of the One Guy.”
Harper laughed. “I knew it. That’s your real angle on all of this.”
“Of course. I didn’t think he’d agree to the life debt, though. That part bothers me. He didn’t even haggle.”
“Bothers me too.”
“You don’t think he sent that blood ghast after us tonight to force our hand, do you?”
“That’s a bit much even for that asshole. No one in their right mind would loose a blood ghast for leverage. A play like that goes wrong and he has local, state, and federal heat coming down on his ass. Not to mention pissing off the kobolds because that means he would have procured a stash of royal body parts to use.”
“Or he had at least one body part.”
“Still. Someone uses that kind of magic and they get tagged.”
Harper’s eyes went wide the same time mine did.
“Shit. We used a body part,” she said. “I’ll see if I can find out if we’re in deep shit with the kobolds as soon as I get off the phone with my mage guy.”
“Do that. Last thing we need are some pissed off goblins hunting us.”
“Kobolds aren’t goblins, Chase.”
“I know, but they’re closely related. And easily as vicious.”
Harper held up her hands in a gesture of surrender. “Not gonna argue with you there.”
I hit call and put the phone to my ear.
“Mr. Lawter?”
“Don’t ask for details because I won’t be giving you any, but we’re delivering a package to D.C.”
“You are?”
“We are.”
“That is good to hear. I’ll prepare the plan and”—
“No goddamn way. Those CI names got leaked somehow which means I can’t trust your department. This is not your operation. We’ll contact you from the road and let you know our ETA. Be ready with a destination then.”
“Mr. Lawter! That is not how”—
I hung up. I didn’t care what else she had to say. The DEX didn’t hire us, the One Guy did.
Goddamn that hurt to admit.
11.
CLOSE TO ONE in the morning Lassa dropped me and Harper off at my place. Despite the fact I could whup ass with Dim rods, and that she’d given me an apocalypse blade to be used in serious emergencies (very serious only since the thing could annihilate a couple square blocks if not handled properly), Harper wasn’t letting me out of her sight.
Like when we were kids on the streets of Asheville, she was going to watch my back. Except instead of dealing with crackheads trying to roll us for drug money, we were dealing with potential blood ghast attacks.
I left her to the couch once all the protection hexes had been double and triple checked on the doors and windows of my place, and she had her goblin sickle close at hand, then I stumbled my still-hungry, but too-exhausted-to-continue-eating, ass back to my bedroom.
I fell across my covers, reached out to my bedside table, and pulled open the drawer containing several spare phones. I activated one of them, then set my alarm for six. Big day coming up and we needed
an early start.
As soon as I activated my new phone, two voicemail badges popped up. I debated, but despite being exhausted, I pressed play.
“Chase,” Iris Penn’s voice said. “Don’t read anything into this.”
That woke my ass up.
I listened carefully as I sat up and propped my back against my pillows.
“I’ve been talking to someone lately,” Iris continued. “Not a therapist or anything like that, but someone that could help me get some perspective on what happened to me.”
“Oh, shit,” I mumbled.
“He seems to think I may have been a little hard on you. That maybe you were in a shitty situation and did the best you could considering how fucked-up shit got.”
Iris had a mouth on her. One of many reasons I was more than smitten.
“Don’t call me back. Okay? I’m not ready to talk, but I wanted you to know that I don’t . . . hate you. Despite all your fucked-up bullshit. When I’m ready, I’ll reach out. When I’m ready. Not before.”
She sat there breathing for a few seconds.
“That’s all. Goodbye.”
I immediately played the next message.
“I’m off on Thursdays now. You can go to Taps & Tapas on Thursdays, if you want. But I can’t guarantee the staff will be nice. I didn’t tell them to be . . . All right . . . Bye. . . .”
Okay. I could handle that. I wasn’t on the total outs with Iris. And my Taps & Tapas ban had been lifted. Or, at least, amended. That was good. Very good. Kind of made dealing with all the crap worth it. It gave me a goal other than simply living. Funny how that happens.
The news should have kept me awake, and my mind racing, but it didn’t and I was drifting off when I heard a knock. Not at my door, but from the wall behind my headboard. Someone was outside.
“Hey,” Travis said as he tried to drift through the wall, his head appearing a foot away from my closet. He grimaced and struggled then managed to get himself through. “Jesus Christ, being a ghost is not as easy as you’d think.”
“Having issues with your incorporeal lifestyle?” I asked as I gave him an exaggerated yawn.
“Being a shapeshifter meant going through life in a hyperaware physical state. Hard to let that go even when dead.”
He settled himself on my clothes hamper. Not that I used the hamper much as evidenced by the piles of dirty clothes everywhere. Travis nudged a pile with his foot.
“You need an assistant,” Travis said. “Get your life in order.”
“You volunteering?”
“Not a chance, buddy. Not a chance.”
“Why are you here, Travis? It’s late, I need to sleep, I got a great voicemail from Iris and don’t want to ruin the good vibe I have going, so what’s up?”
“Iris? Really? Do tell.”
“No. You do the telling.”
Travis sighed and his body started to melt through the hamper.
“Dammit. Hold on.”
He scrunched up his face and in a second he was back on top of the lid and sitting solid.
“There. Okay. So, being a former shapeshifter, I’ve been exposed to a lot of different beings and a lot of different dimensions.”
“Yeah, I know. Get to the goddamn subject.”
“There are a few traits all beings have in common. One of those traits being old-fashioned bigotry. ‘Not from my dimension? Then to hell with you.’”
“The hatred of the other. Yeah, yeah, I get it. So . . . ?”
“Hatred eventually leads to hate groups.”
“Humans are predictable that way.”
“Hate groups need income as much as any other group.”
“Except hate groups don’t always go the legit route,” I said, starting to catch on.
“So, I did some digging after I left the office and a good handful of those groups all have one person in common.”
“The One Guy.” Even as I said the words, I truly wasn’t surprised. He had his sticky fingers in all kinds of nasty pies. “That’s the game the asshole plays.”
“True, true, but we’re now involved. Or Black Box Inc. is now involved and I’m involved adjacent. Can a ghost be involved adjacent?”
“Doesn’t matter. You’re involved,” I said and yawned. “But that’s not keeping me awake. Can we talk about this in the morning? I’m dead tired.”
“Better than being straight-up dead.”
“Ha. Thanks for the food for thought, Travis. I appreciate it. And don’t worry. At no point do I trust the One Guy or expect this job to be cut-and-dried. The son of a bitch has an agenda.”
“You aren’t worried that agenda includes manipulating you into doing exactly what he wants? You aren’t worried we’re only a piece in his larger plan?”
“Of course we are. I’ve known the One Guy for most of my life. He doesn’t take a shit unless he’s manipulating someone to wipe his ass for him. But, here’s the thing, Travis, I don’t care. I plan on dropping his shit-wiped ass off in DC and saying see ya later. There was no return trip in the deal. With any luck he’ll be stuck in the Washington machine for years and, if we’re really goddamn lucky, he won’t be coming back to Asheville at all.”
“How do you figure?”
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Travis stiffened.
“What?” he asked suspiciously.
“Confession time,” I said, giving him an apologetic look. “I was going to spring this on you in the morning so there was no time for you to come up with an argument, but here it goes. I need you to stay here in Asheville while we’re gone and dig deep into the One Guy’s operations. I need you to find the dirt on him that will make sure he stays locked up in Washington DC for a very long time. Find something that scares the DEX enough that they won’t want him to return to Asheville.”
“Jesus, Chase . . . Like what?”
“Build on the bigotry angle.” I shrugged. “Look into those groups. Whatever you can find. Doesn’t have to hold up in court, it only has to hold up in the paranoid minds of government officials. And nothing makes the government more paranoid than a bunch of human supremacist militias.”
Travis shook his head then stopped and glared at me.
“I’d be more useful on the road,” he said.
“Maybe. But I’d rather you stay. You can watch out for Sharon. She’s going to need the help and possibly some protection.”
More glaring. “Fine,” he said finally. “I stay and look for the dirt to keep the One Guy out of Asheville for good.”
“Thanks, pal. I appreciate it.”
We watched each other for a minute.
“I should be going,” he said.
“Yeah, go. Go now. Not too thrilled with a ghost watching me sleep.”
“I’ll see you all off in the morning.”
“See you back at the office first thing.”
He stood up and went to the wall, hesitated, looked like he was going to say something, then gave me a quick wave and floated through. His technique wasn’t graceful, but he managed and was gone.
I let out the mental breath I’d been holding and closed my eyes. But sleep wasn’t happening. So, I got up and decided to empty my fridge of whatever leftovers were in there. Travis gave me food for thought, but I needed real food for my belly more.
As I got out of bed I heard another knock, but this time from my bedroom door.
“Hold on, Harp,” I said as I yanked on a pair of pants. I crossed to the door and opened it. “What’s . . . up?”
Floating a few inches off the ground were two kids. Young teens, by the look of them. Dead. Very dead. Full-on ghosts. Not nice-looking ghosts like Travis, but tortured ghosts with warped features and evidence that some seriously bad shit happened to them i
n life. Their bodies were a patchwork of flesh and bone. Literally bits of bone were sticking out here and there.
“You,” they hissed at me. “You.”
“Me?” I replied, patting my pockets for some kind of ward or charm or weapon. “Me what?”
“You did this. You. You! YOU!”
They rushed me and I fell on my ass, my back hitting the end of my bed hard. The metal bed frame dug into my spine and I cried out as four cold hands clamped over my face and head. They were trying to get inside me, trying to worm those fingers into my mouth, into my ears, up my nose.
I coughed and gasped and struggled and fought and—
And woke up.
“Hey,” Harper said, taking a step back from my bed as my arms flew up to ward her off and the Dim began to flow from my hands. “Hey, calm down. Bad dream, man. Bad dream.”
I looked about the room, but no ghost kids. Only my piles of dirty laundry and Harper. I sent the Dim away and gave her a weak smile.
“Thanks,” I said.
“For what?” she asked as she stood there in her underwear, one hand scratching her ass while the other rubbed under her boobs. Modesty wasn’t Harper’s thing.
“Bringing me out of that bad dream. I was being . . . Never mind. Doesn’t matter. Bad dream. Sorry if I woke you up.”
“You didn’t,” she said. “It’s morning. We gotta go. Grab some food while I shit and shower then we can hit the road. Lassa called and he’s sending us the address where we can meet him and the truck.”
“Wait, what? We aren’t going back to the office?”
“Nope. We’re on the job as of now. Get the truck, get the One Guy on the truck, get on our way to DC. Going back to the office is predictable. From here on out we avoid predictable at all costs.”
She rubbed her belly and frowned.
“Don’t worry your pretty Dim-making head, Chase. You make the box to keep the One Guy safe and leave the rest to me and Lassa, cool?”
“Yeah. Sure. Cool.”
“Good because I don’t have time to argue. Gotta crap something fierce. That Chinese last night was way too fucking greasy.”