by T. A. Pratt
“Bullshit. It was just lunch. Joshua’s a new employee. We have a lot to talk about.”
“I’m a bit worried about all the time you’re spending with him. Being near a Ganconer is like being near plutonium. You…soak up the radiation. The effects become more and more powerful, and they stay with you. The more time you spend with a lovetalker, the more susceptible you become to his charms, until you don’t even need to be in his presence to fall under his sway.”
“Please. He works for me. He only charms the people I tell him to. Anyway, he’s a stand-up guy. I told you how well he handled himself at the gang meeting, and how he helped out with the little reality breakdown afterward.”
“I’m glad he’s working out. I just don’t want your…association…with him to interfere with your other responsibilities. I understand you and Joshua went on a date last night?”
“It wasn’t a date, it was a business dinner. But even if it was a date, so what? I don’t answer to you, Hamil.” Sure, she’d put off a few things, but nothing vital. The responsibilities that she’d felt so buried by all week seemed less pressing now. Her priorities had shifted, somehow. She was almost happy, and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt that way when she wasn’t actually beating someone up or making an enemy miserable.
“I’m your consiglieri. It’s my job to worry. With Genevieve loose, and slow assassins in the city, it just seems like an inopportune time to start a romantic relationship. And if you sleep with a lovetalker…well, their power is supposed to become even greater then. It’s not your fault, it’s just impossible to be rational when you’re under the sway of—”
“I haven’t fucked him, Hamil.”
“I’m just afraid that—”
“Your concerns are duly noted,” Marla said coolly. “Now get lost. I’ve got places to be.”
Hamil levered himself up from chair, opened his mouth, then apparently thought better of it, giving her a curt nod and leaving the room.
Marla scowled. So maybe she was spending a lot of time with Joshua. Was it so bad, that she should enjoy herself a little? You’d think he’d be happy for her. Hamil was always telling her she worked too hard, that she should take a break every once in a while. But as soon as she did, he got pissed!
Ted knocked on the door. “Marla, your lunch date is here.”
“Great.” She almost asked him if she looked okay, but bit her tongue in time to stop herself. “Send him in.”
Zealand, dressed in a fine suit, glanced over his newspaper to watch Marla laughing and flirting with the same companion she’d been with for the past few days. She never had come back for the Bentley the other night—Rondeau and Marla’s new personal assistant had retrieved the car after dawn. Marla’s relatively regular daytime patterns had changed, and now she seemed to spend all her time with this man, who was reputedly her new apprentice. Though she still went home, alone, late each night. Zealand decided he should strike soon, before that pattern, too, changed. Tonight, then. It would be good to finish. The other slow assassins were still looking for him. It was time to kill Marla and leave Felport behind. He went back to his newspaper, and across the room, Marla Mason laughed at something her companion said.
8
A fter dinner at one of the city’s finest restaurants, Joshua and Marla went back to her office, ostensibly to continue going over the dossiers on the city’s leading sorcerers. Marla thought he’d already learned enough about the major players in the city to handle the negotiations regarding Susan Wellstone’s estate, but it was a good excuse to remain in his company without letting him know how much she enjoyed him.
“If I have to read another word about Viscarro and his vaults, I think I’ll scream,” Joshua said, tossing the folder into the middle of her desk.
“All right, fine. I guess I’ve worked you hard enough for tonight.”
Joshua leaned forward, looking into her eyes, and Marla felt something inside her melt. Gods, he was pretty. “I was hoping…”
“Yeah?”
“That you might agree to come back to my hotel room tonight.”
“Oh?” she said, leaning back, playing it cool. “Why’s that?”
“So I can do my best to seduce you,” he said matter-of-factly. “There’s something about you, Marla. You’re not like other women. Or men, for that matter. These past few days have been eye-opening. You fascinate me.”
“You really think it’s a good idea to try to fuck your boss, Joshua?” Marla wasn’t sure. Her head thought it was a bad idea. The rest of her thought it was a very good idea. And part of her couldn’t figure out why he’d want to, when he could have his pick of the most beautiful women and men in Felport, serially or simultaneously, as he desired. Marla thought she had a pretty good sense of her own looks—her features were more strong than pretty, and though she was in great shape, she had more than her share of scars. Some men found her attractive, certainly, but they were mostly people who were attracted to strength and power, and nobody in the world had any power over Joshua….
Oh. Despite her growing attraction, Marla had never stopped talking shit to him. She was snarky, brusque, condescending, and impatient, all very conscious behaviors born from her annoyance at being so fucking smitten with him. She was mean to him because to do otherwise would mean admitting she was in his power, and she wasn’t about to do that. And I’m probably the only woman who’s ever talked to him this way. Most straight girls probably just dropped their panties as soon as he smiled at them. Marla must seem like an impossible thing—a challenge.
“I don’t know if it’s a good idea or not, but I think you’d have a very pleasant time,” Joshua said. “Are you interested?”
Marla yawned. “It’s been a while since I’ve indulged. I’m usually too busy for that sort of thing. In all honesty, I’m currently too busy for that sort of thing.”
“It doesn’t have to be a relationship,” he said. “Though, if that’s what develops…Do you find me attractive?”
Marla laughed out loud. Most guys were more sophisticated than that. But why would Joshua have ever needed to learn techniques of seduction? “Of course I do, Joshua. You could weigh four hundred pounds and have two heads and I’d find you attractive. The whole reason you’re valuable to my organization is because everyone finds you attractive. So what? Maybe I’m looking for more.” In truth, Marla wasn’t looking for anything, not romantically. She had plenty of other things to keep her occupied, and like she’d told Ted, she wasn’t much of a romantic.
He bowed his head. “I’m sorry. I thought, perhaps…I’ll go.”
Marla had to bite her tongue, literally, to keep from speaking right away. She waited until he was halfway to the door before saying, “Wait. It’s been a long week, and a romp wouldn’t be out of the question. Sure, let’s do it. But we’ll go to my place.”
“Whatever you want,” Joshua said. “I have a limousine waiting downstairs. Hamil was kind enough to provide it.”
“Good,” Marla said, rising. She decided, since she’d come this far, that she could afford to flirt a little. “His limo has nice leather seats. We can get started on the way to my place. I’m curious to see if your talent lives up to the hype.”
“I will endeavor to give satisfaction,” he said, with a smile that made her feel light-headed.
When Zealand was about a block from Marla’s apartment, the world changed. A sudden wave of dizziness overtook him, and he fell toward the side of a building, barely catching himself, and dropping his heavy leather tool-bag. A moment later he was facedown, sprawled inelegantly, his nose pressed against the freezing concrete, with no memory of actually hitting the ground. He sat up, groaning, but the vertigo was fading. There was a trick in hand-to-hand fighting of slapping your opponent against the ear to upset their equilibrium, leaving them to lurch out of balance. He felt like that. He closed his eyes and took deep breaths until he felt level again. When he opened his eyes, he saw a massive palace in the center of the street. Ma
de of opalescent stone, it disappeared into the sky, an upthrusting construction that baffled the assassin’s sense of scale. Silver rods protruded from the tower at regular intervals, and yellow banners flapped at the ends of the poles. Arched windows of different sizes dotted the tower, and a few rounded balconies protruded from the sides. It was a beautiful, impossible thing.
Zealand closed his eyes again and did a slow count to ten. Gradually, the sound of the flapping flags diminished, then ceased. He looked, and saw only the icy street and a passing yellow cab, rolling slowly in the evening gloom. No palace.
He rose, picked up his bag, and continued toward Marla’s apartment. Zealand depended on his senses to survive, and a hallucination or loss of equilibrium at the wrong moment could spell death. He’d been working too long among these magicians, with their rituals and mysteries. He didn’t want their indefinite, ever-shifting world to become his own. He’d kill Marla and go elsewhere, maybe back home to the West Coast.
Marla lived in a five-story former flophouse, a squat broad building of crumbling brick with an elaborate sign that read “Hotel Felport” sagging on the roof. It had probably been home to drunks and failed door-to-door salesmen once upon a time, but now Marla lived there alone, on the top floor.
A pair of chipped stone lions, draped in piled snow, guarded the front steps. Cardboard filled the holes in several windows, while the wind whistled through others, though all the windows on the first two stories were barred. A battered wrought-iron gate protected the garbage cans, and a fat tabby crouched beside a disconnected bicycle wheel chained to the gate. Icicles completely choked the gutters, frozen cascades of spikes, and more glistened like teeth from the roof’s overhang. As always he wondered why Marla, Queen of Felport’s Underworld, chose to live in such tawdry quarters.
The front door was well secured, but he found a side door that gave way under the proper application of leverage from his crowbar. Once inside, he headed up the stairs, mistrusting the look of the old-style elevator with its sliding grate. Half the lightbulbs were broken, and trash lay piled on the stairs. The lobby smelled like urine, and the second-floor landing like vomit, while the third floor reeked of pine-scented disinfectant. The fourth floor smelled like mold and motor oil. The fifth floor smelled like dust and nothing much else at all. He went to Marla’s door—501—and frowned at the crudely hacked designs around the doorjamb. They resembled a blend of Arabic and Cyrillic characters, sometimes flowing gracefully, sometimes jagged and angular. Nothing as simple or familiar as a pentagram or a spiral. Zealand took a long, flexible metal rod from his inner coat pocket. He used it to break into cars, sometimes. He extended the rod toward the door slowly, his eyes widening when the hacked runes began to glow with a pale blue light. The end of the rod reddened, and he pulled it back, then spat on the metal. His spittle sizzled where it struck.
Hmm. A problem, but not an unexpected one. Gregor had warned him that Marla might have defenses like this, and they had discussed strategies. Zealand knew the floor plans for these apartments. He went to the next apartment and knocked imperiously at the door. No one responded. Zealand’s surveillance indicated that Marla lived alone here, but guests were always a possibility. The assassin picked the lock laboriously. He could kill in a thousand different ways, from the subtle to the extreme, but he’d never been much good at picking locks. He could have broken the door open, but he didn’t want to leave any warnings for Marla.
He finally opened the lock and went into the apartment. A little light came in through the window from the one working streetlight outside, and he used a flashlight for the rest. Boxes were piled everywhere, and a cursory examination revealed old clothes, paperback books, mismatched dishes, and other detritus. Marla probably used this apartment for storage.
He went into the bedroom, noting the scurry of mice. He opened the closet door, and found the space beyond empty. Why use the closet when the whole apartment was her closet? He rapped his knuckles on the wall and smiled. Cheap apartments, thin walls. He drew a hammer, chisel, and miniature hacksaw from his bag, then placed the chisel against the wall and tapped it lightly. The chisel punched right through the wall. Working quickly, listening for the sound of Marla’s door opening, he cut a large rectangular hole near the bottom of the closet. Once he had a hole big enough to squeeze through, he pulled out the dirty cotton-candy-like insulation. He tugged on the few wires in his way experimentally and decided they would spread apart without breaking when he wriggled through.
Using the saw and the chisel, he carefully cut a corresponding section from Marla’s wall. He would enter her apartment, a mirror-image of this one, through her bedroom closet. He eased out the chunk of drywall and shone his light into the space beyond.
Hanging clothes, various shoes and boots, and the closed door. He wriggled through into Marla’s closet, then reached up and tried the doorknob. It turned, and he pushed the door open incrementally, his ears straining for any sound. Nothing, not even the creak of the closet door. Good. He wouldn’t have to bother oiling the hinges.
He stood and stepped into her dark bedroom, shining his flashlight. The room was messy, dominated by an unmade king-sized bed with a heavy iron frame. A large mirror with elaborate scrollwork hung on the wall, but it needed to be cleaned, and clothes lay piled on the floor and on top of a cheap wooden dresser with its drawers half-open. The nightstand by the bed held several heavy tomes, a dusty glass of water, and a blue vibrator. The only beautiful object in the room was a large wooden wardrobe, intricately carved with snakes and vines, standing against the far wall, next to the door. He went closer, intrigued, and saw runes similar to those outside cut into the wood near the door handles. He didn’t bother to reach for them, but he wondered what sort of treasures lay within. Probably nothing he’d know how to use anyway. Sorcerer things.
He went into the living room, surprised to find it almost completely bare. A cheap plywood shelf dominated one wall, covered with leatherbound books, but there was no other furniture, and the floor had been stripped of carpet. He stepped into the bathroom. Cracked porcelain and a water-stained basin—about what he’d come to expect. The bedroom provided the best hiding place, the closet especially. He would lie in wait there. Perhaps he’d even be able to kill Marla while she slept.
He returned to the bedroom, careful not to disturb the piles of clothing and old magazines, and got back into the closet, sitting behind the hanging clothes. He opened his bag and withdrew one of the few high-tech devices he liked, a tiny fiber-optic camera with a wide-angle lens that he snaked under the crack beneath the closet door. The camera cable plugged into a little handheld monitor, giving him a sharp, high-contrast image of Marla’s dim bedroom. He’d be able to watch and wait for the optimal moment to strike. Now, though, it was just waiting. Marla’s work hours varied wildly, and with his luck, this would be the night she decided to stay out until 4 A.M. Ah, well. Gregor was paying him well for his patience. Zealand settled in.
Kissing Joshua in the back of the limo was the most sensually pleasurable thing Marla had ever done, better than the first taste of caterpillar rolls from her favorite sushi restaurant, better than a soak in the hot tub after a hard workout, better than fifteen minutes alone in bed with some well-thumbed porn and a Hitachi magic wand. Kissing him was like the way she’d imagined kissing boys would be back in junior high, a delicious act of transformational wonder.
She managed to break the kiss—she was in danger of melting against Joshua with a long low moan of pleasure, and once she did that, she’d be like everyone else who’d ever been trapped in his spell, and why would she interest him then? She saw the irony, of course. She’d started out being mean to Joshua to show him that she wouldn’t fall victim to his lovetalker’s charms, and now that he seemed attracted to her indifference, she was using that to try to seduce him. Marla wasn’t sure how exactly she’d tumbled into this tangled relationship, but it felt good, and for the moment, she was willing to roll with it.
“You’
re a hell of a kisser, Joshua Kindler,” she said, touching his cheek for a moment, then leaning back against the seat of the limo. Being in such close quarters with him was increasingly intoxicating. The limo moved slowly down the icy streets, so it would be a few minutes before they reached her building. Would she be able to keep herself from climbing on top of him in the meantime? She opened the window a crack, letting in a stream of cold, refreshing air. Did it clear her head a little? Maybe his powers were based on pheromones. “Most lovetalkers just stick their tongues down your throat and have done with it, I’ve heard. You actually seem to care about your technique.”
“You seem to be constantly surprised that I’m not a beast. I haven’t met anyone else with my power. Hamil tells me we tend not to get along, perhaps for the same reason queen bees can’t stand the presence of another queen—not that I’m a queen, mind you, as I hope you’ll find out soon—but I’m sad to hear most of them are so indifferent in their manners. I was raised better, I suppose.”
“Sorry, Joshua. You seem like a good guy, but then, you would, wouldn’t you? The very fact that I like and trust you gives me grounds to dislike and mistrust you, you know?”
He sighed and shifted a little in the seat, and it was, somehow, like watching a perfect statue settle itself into an even more perfect pose. “I cannot help what I am, Marla. I didn’t go to the crossroads at midnight and make a deal with the devil. But I am more than a lovetalker. I am a man. And I am often bored. You’re the first interesting thing to come along in ages.”
“People who get whatever they want for the asking are often bored. Having something that challenges you a bit is more interesting. Maybe you should play more games. Though people would probably just lose on purpose to make you happy.”
“I don’t think you would lose just to please me,” Joshua said, smiling.