turn this page for an excerpt from
available in paperback December 2007
Familiar laughter caught my attention. The couple from the beach, they were here, just entering an elevator. Without conscious thought I'd followed them to their hotel and booked a room. I checked the receipt. At least I'd used my personal credit card. If I'd had to explain this to Pete, well, maybe I could've come up with something. But I probably would've just resigned.
I shoved the stuff the desk clerk had handed me into my back pocket and strode outside. I needed to do something concrete. Something to bring me back to myself. So I phoned my sister.
'Evie?'
'Oh, Jaz, I'm so glad you called.'
'You sound tired.'
'I am. E.J. has hardly stopped crying all day. This doesn't seem right, does it?'
'No. I know he'll just say it's that colic.' Her voice started to shake. 'I just feel like such a terrible mother that I can't make her stop crying!'
Now here was something I could deal with. 'Evie, you are an awesome mother. This I can tell you from experience. I've seen you in action. Plus I have had a crappy mother. So I know whereof I speak. You rock. I know it's tough on you guys having a baby who cries all the time. The lack of sleep alone is probably making you a little crazy. I know I'm still kinda grouchy and I've only been gone, what, a couple of days? But listen, you will figure this out, okay?'
Big pause. 'O-kay.'
'Did I say something wrong?'
'It's just… usually you tell me what to do. Then I do it, and things get better.'
'That was before you started playing out of my league,' I said, smiling when I heard her soft laughter. 'Just… trust yourself, okay? You and Tim know E.J. better than anybody, including the pediatrician. And get some sleep, would you? You're going to have bags under your eyes you'll be able to store your winter clothes in.'
'Okay. How are things going with you?'
'Okay. Love you.'
'Love you too.'
Feeling somewhat rebalanced now I'd touched base with the most stable person I knew, I walked around to the back of the building, which faced the festival site. As I wound my way through the first tier of cars in the parking lot, a green glow near some fencing that disguised a large garbage bin distracted me from my inner teeth-gnashing. It didn't mesh with the white of the lot lights. I drew Grief and chambered a round. The glow brightened, changing color from pine needles to ripe limes.
I closed my eyes tight for a couple of seconds, activating the night vision contacts Bergman had designed for me. They combined with my Sensitivy-upgraded sight to show me a greenish-gold figure standing beside the fence. It faced me, but leaned over every few seconds, fully engrossed in whatever lay at its feet. Oddly, a black frame surrounded it, as if someone had outlined it with a Sharpie.
I moved closer, sliding past the dark hulks of parked vehicles, taking quick glances every few steps, trying to identify the thing on the ground that acted as both the source of the green glow and the subject of the outlined figure's interest. When I finally caught a glance, I bit my lip to keep from gasping. It was the body of the security guard, the one who'd been hanging out with the two-faced man.
Blood, everywhere, as if someone had tapped a geyser. Exposed ribs. Dark, glistening organs. Someone had ripped this guy's chest open from neck to navel! The smell, damn, you just never get used to it. And thank God we were outside, otherwise I'd be puking like a bulimic after an Oreo cookie binge. Above it all hovered a jeweled cloud I could only think of as his soul. I wanted to regard it as untouched. The one part of the man his murderer could not soil. But I couldn't. Because this is what had his killer's attention.
No doubt, the one who'd taken his life stood right next to him still, and had been all day, posing as a man with only one face. 'Man' was the wrong descriptor though. That outline—nobody I'd ever met had that. And when he leaned over, the outline split at his head and his fingers, allowing some of the greenish-gold of his inner aura to seep through.
His mouth opened wide and from it unrolled a huge, pink tongue covered with spike-like appendages. He ran it along the length of the dead man's soul. It shivered, frantically trying to fly apart, to meld with his family, his friends, his maker. But the spikes released some sort of glue that forced the jewels into immobility. At the same time the soul cloud bleached to pastel.
The two-faced man looked up, his eyes closed, ecstasy lifting the corners of his flabby lips. And then a third eye