He leaned in close enough he didn’t have to raise his voice over the sound of the crowd. “Be nice, shake hands, make it quick. We’re going to the office to take care of things.”
“Why would I want to go to the office?”
His hand squeezed until my neck hurt. “Because. I. Need. You. To.”
Then he released my shoulder and walked away, calm and smiling, and in control. The bastard.
I strode across the room, making eye contact with anyone who looked at me. They all looked away. Terric played his part. Shook hands, made conversation, appeared concerned for people.
But I was doing them the highest favor of all: getting the hell away from them.
Eleanor drifted along beside me, arms crossed, and frowning.
I stopped halfway down the hall and fumbled for a cigarette. Pulled out the pack and tapped out two. Lit one, which burned to ash in my shaking hand almost too quickly for me to use it to light the other cigarette.
I inhaled, savoring chemicals and tobacco, and more so, savoring the burning, destructive death of plant matter and paper. Got about halfway through it before I noticed Eleanor was pointing at a NO SMOKING sign.
“Sorry, love,” I said. “I’m immune to rules. Followed too many when I was young.” I exhaled smoke. “Built up a tolerance.”
I leaned on the wall next to the sign, finished off the cigarette, and lit another one. Even at this distance and through the Mute spell, I could feel their heartbeats, could feel the pulse of their lives filling that room like warm, thick water I wanted to drown myself in.
Terric was in there. I could sense him like a clear beam of light in the dark shit hole of my life. Sure, I could consume all those people. Or I could consume him. He’d be better. Far better than the entire population of this city.
Then he’d be dead.
“You know what?” I said, pinching out the smoldering end of the cigarette with my fingers. Ouch. Yeah, even pain could feed my need, if necessary. “I’m done waiting. Let’s go.”
Eleanor pointed at the closed door to the meeting room, then tapped her wrist like she had a watch there. She didn’t, but I got her point.
I hadn’t waited very long for Terric.
“I’ll leave him a note, all right?” I was already walking toward the elevator and she, of course, followed along.
When I’d first killed her, I could hear her. She had been angry, furious. But as time went on, it was harder and harder to hear her. Either that was how it always was for ghosts, or maybe it just took a hell of a lot of emotion to make words carry between the living and dead.
Charades usually got her point across, and even though it meant I talked out loud to myself like some kind of crazy, it worked.
Plus, it made people avoid me. So, win-win.
Didn’t see anyone on the main floor.
Outside. Still too damn sunny and freezing. October sky was blue, but the air was bitch-cold. I flipped up my collar and strode up the block to Terric’s car.
Pulled a piece of gum out of my pocket, chewed. Smoothed out the gum wrapper, pulled out a pen. Used the top of his hood to write
“There,” I said to Eleanor. “Note. Let’s get moving.”
Buses were a bad idea—too many people. Same for the light rail. I had enough money for a cab, but walking was good. The motion, the burning of calories, did a lot to satisfy my need to destroy, consume. But there was no way in hell I was walking clear across town.
I’d probably catch the MAX—light rail—on the other side of the bridge.
Forty, twenty-seven, three, sixteen. I counted the people in the shops I passed, could tell by their heartbeat if they were young, old, or really old.
Hardest to ignore were the young and old, both so close to one side of the grave. Easy pickings.
I shoved my hands harder down in my coat pockets and dug my nails into the weave of my pockets, tearing at the threads.
Could this day tick by any damn slower?
I needed to feed. And if not that, because fuck me if I was going to kill anyone today, I needed a damn drink. Several, actually. Something to take the hard light out of the day, and sand all the edges off the world.
I was about a block away from the bridge when the slick black Corvette rolled up and stopped just in front of me. I probably should have been paying attention, but survival hadn’t really been my thing lately.
“Hey, you!”
I pulled my chin up out of my coat collar, and the world snapped down around me with all its clean, hard edges.
Situation: two guys in dark coats stepping out of the car. Driver built like a lumberjack, hair skinhead chic with a shaved lightning bolt, or maybe scar showing skin about three inches into his hairline above his right eyebrow. Unibrow, eyes set too close together, old acne scars.
Other guy was skin over bone. Goat face, long nose, eyes set too wide. Hair shaved up both sides left to fall in a greasy swatch over one eye. Half a hardware store worth of hooks pierced his ears, eyebrows, and down the left side of his neck.
I didn’t know these jackasses. I kept walking.
“I’m talking to you,” Driver yelled. Driver also started toward me with a swagger that made it look like he was an inch short in one leg.
I flipped him off.
He kept coming, and even though I shouldn’t, I stopped. “What is your problem?” I said.
“You know a buddy of ours,” Driver said.
“Doubt it. I don’t hang out with assholes.”
Driver smiled, showing a lot of gold on those teeth.
“Sure you do,” he said. “Met him in an alley over on MLK this morning. Called the cops on him.”
He must be talking about the ox. I wondered if these were the two men Terric had sent running.
“We don’t like people who inconvenience our friends,” Goat-face said. He had a slight lisp. He also had a baseball bat.
I held up one finger. “Time out. I didn’t call the cops on that jackhole. I don’t even know what they took him in for. Also, you really want to put that bat down, mate.”
He did not put the bat down.
Eleanor was floating a few yards in front of me. She was shaking her head and waving her hands in very clear “no,” “stop” gestures.
Right, like I was going to stand here and let them beat the crap out of me.
Driver stepped all up in my space, breathing garlic and beer over every word. “We are going to fuck you up.”
His heart was thumping up in the heart attack levels. He was excited. Revved up. Alive.
“One last chance,” I said evenly. “Walk away. I have no quarrel with you. You’ll regret having a quarrel with me.”
It made him pause. At least he had some sense of self-preservation. I am not joking when I say I look like death. And right now I was doing nothing to hide what I really was. I was trying in no way to look human.
The magic that had changed me was usually enough for people to know there was something terribly wrong with me.
Driver saw what I really was.
I gave him a slow nod. Permission to back away.
He took a step back.
But the other guy? Not so much with the smart. He’d come up on my right and swung the bat at my ribs.
I moved out of the way enough that it just clipped me. Which, yes, hurt like a bitch. Bruises, though I don’t think anything cracked.
