Dead Harvest

  'Who are you? What are you doing here?' His hand crept toward the register. His eyes never left mine. If this was indeed my guy, I didn't want any part in whatever he was reaching for.

  I raised my hands in what I hoped was a placating gesture. 'My name is Sam Thornton. I'm here because a girl has gone missing, and it's important that I find her. I spoke to Merihem, and he told me you may be able to help.'

  The man broke into a smile, his hand no longer creeping toward the register. 'Merihem sent you, did he? That bastard owes me fifty bucks. Sorry about all the subterfuge, but when one deals in items such as mine, one must be careful of the company one keeps. So you say you've lost a girl, eh? Let's see if we can find her, shall we?'

  He removed from a desk drawer a worn wooden top and a creased map of the city, setting both on the desktop. I eyed them with suspicion. 'That's what's going to help me find her?'

  Again, Wai-Sun smiled. 'Mystical objects need not be as elaborate as one might think. After all, appearances can be deceiving. So your girl – do you have anything of hers? A lock of hair, perhaps, or an article of clothing?'

  I shook my head, and he frowned.

  'No matter,' he said. 'I think I have something in the back that might do the trick.'

  He brushed aside the curtain that separated the front room from the back, and disappeared into the murk beyond. 'So, this girl, she is of some importance, is she not?'

  'She's my mother's sister's girl,' I lied. 'I was supposed to have her for the week, and she ditched me so she could meet up with her boyfriend. If I don't find her, Mom's gonna have a fit.'

  'Come now,' he said, 'there's no need to bore me with your falsehoods – I am merely making conversation. Your secrets are your own.' Behind the curtain, something clattered to the floor, and Wai-Sun cursed softly under his breath.

  'You need a hand back there?'

  'No cause for alarm – I'll be out in a moment!'

  There was something about his tone that didn't ring true. It was too cheery. Too earnest. Too at odds with the whispered epithet I'd heard him utter mere seconds before.

  Something wasn't right here.

  Silent as death, I ducked behind the desk and approached the curtain. The racket in the back room continued. Gingerly, I pushed the curtain aside.

  Wai-Sun lay in the center of the storeroom, glassy eyes staring upward toward the ceiling. The floor around him was thick with congealing blood, glistening in the lamplight. His face was twisted into a rictus of pain, and he looked as if his throat had been ripped clean from his body. Well, anything but clean – tattered shreds of flesh clung to the ruined remains of his neck, exposing pink-white glimmers of bone beneath.

  My Wai-Sun was standing, his back to me, in the far corner of the room, ransacking a set of small wooden drawers mounted above a rough-hewn workbench. His clothes, his hair, his everything, were identical to the man who lay lifeless on the floor beside him.

  Too late, I realized what happened: that piece of shit Merihem had set me up.

  Suddenly, my Wai-Sun straightened and turned.

  'I really wish you hadn't done that,' he said. Seeing him there, hearing him speak while two feet away he lay dead in a pool of his own blood, set my head and stomach reeling. 'If you'd simply given us the girl's location, I might have let you live.' His eyes flickered with black fire, and his features became suddenly vague – a mere suggestion of the Wai-Sun that lay ravaged at my feet. He seemed somehow to expand, his small frame suddenly filling the room. All around him was a halo of shimmering, liquid blackness, like silk fluttering weightless in an underwater current.

  'No,' I said. 'You wouldn't have.'

  'Sounds nice, though, doesn't it? Merciful. Of course, I've never been much for mercy.' The darkness pressed against my mind, obliterating all thought. I tried to tell my legs to run. They weren't listening.

  'Who are you?'

  'I think you misunderstand the situation, Collector. I'm the one who'll ask the questions. Now tell me – where the fuck is the girl?'

  'You don't listen well, do you? If I knew where the girl was I wouldn't be here. Of course, Wai-Sun could've probably found her for you, if you hadn't gone and torn out his throat.'

  'You expect me to take criticism from a monkey? Wai-Sun was useless. He might as well have thrown open a window and shouted for her, for all the good he did. No, to find her I need someone with a connection to the girl – which, for the record, is the only reason you're still standing.'

  'If you think I'm going to deliver her to you, you're out of your fucking mind.'

  I didn't even see him move. One moment, he was standing half a room away. The next, his hand was on my throat. His eyes met mine, and I was plunged into darkness so complete, for a moment, I thought I'd ceased to be. Then he threw me across the room, and the darkness lifted.

  I crashed into a stack of half-assembled wooden chairs. He was on me in a flash. He yanked me from the rubble by my arm. Something in my shoulder snapped. 'I think with the proper encouragement, Collector, you'll tell me everything I need to know.' He let me go, and I tumbled to the floor. Then he kicked me so hard my vision went dim and my mouth filled with the copper tang of blood.

  The kick lifted me up off the floor and sent me sailing across the room. I slammed into a bank of shelves and crumpled to the floor, the shelves crashing to the ground atop me. Pain blossomed in my head and in my chest – exquisite, clarifying – and the world snapped back into focus. I clambered to my feet, shrugging aside the splintered wood and shards of glass that used to be the contents of the shelves.