The guard leveled a crossbow at me.
'Very scary,' I told him. 'One small problem. You shoot me and the tenant in one fifty-eight won't live through the night. I'm not a threat to you. I'm a bodyguard on the job from the Mercenary Guild. If you call to one fifty eight and check, they'll tell you they're expecting me.'
The guard rose and disappeared into a hallway to the right. A long minute passed. Finally he emerged, looking sour, and pushed a button. The metal grate slid aside.
I walked in. The floor and walls were polished red granite. The air smelled of expensive perfume.
'Fifteenth floor,' the guard said, nodding at the elevator in the back of the room.
'The magic is up.' The elevator was likely dead.
'Fifteenth floor.'
Oy. I walked up to the elevator and pushed the Up button. The metal doors slid open. I got in and selected the fifteenth floor, the elevator closed and a moment later faint purring announced the cabin rising. It's good to be rich.
The elevator spat me out into a hallway lined with a luxurious green carpet. I plodded through it past the door marked 158 to the end of the hallway to the door under the EXIT sign and opened it. Stairs. Unfortunately in good repair. The door opened from the inside of the hallway, but it didn't lock. No way to jam it.
The hallway was T shaped with only one exit, which meant that potential attackers could come either through the elevator shaft or up the stairs.
I went up to 158 and knocked.
The door shot open. Gina Castor's dark eyes glared at me. An AK-47 hung off her shoulder. She held a black duffel in one hand and her sword in the other. 'What took you so long?'
'Hello to you, too.'
She pushed past me, the thin slightly stooped Rodriguez following her. 'He's all yours.'
I caught the door before it clicked shut. 'Where is the client?'
'Chained to the bed.' They headed to the elevator.
'Why?'
Castor flashed her teeth at me. 'You'll figure it out.'
The elevator's door slid open, they ducked in, and a moment later I was alone in the hallway, holding the door open like an idiot. Peachy.
I stepped inside and shut the door. A faint spark of magic shot through the metal box of the card-reader lock. I touched it. The lock was a sham. The door was protected by a ward. I pushed harder. My magic crashed against the invisible wall of the spell and ground to a halt. An expensive ward, too. Good. Made my job a hair easier.
I slid the dead bolt shut and turned. I stood in a huge living room, big enough to contain most of my house. A marble counter ran along the wall on my left, sheltering a bar with glass shelves offering everything from Bombay Sapphire to French wines. A large steel fridge sat behind the bar. White, criminally plush carpet, black walls, steel and glass furniture, and beyond it all an enormous floor to ceiling window, presenting the vista of the ruined city, a deep darkness, lit here and there by the pale blue of fey lanterns.
I stayed away from the window and trailed the wall, punctuated by three doors. The first opened into a laboratory: flame-retardant table and counters supporting row upon row of equipment. I recognized a magic scanner, a computer, and a spectrograph, but the rest was beyond me. No client.
I tried the second door and found a large room. Gloom pooled in the corners. A huge platform bed occupied most of the hardwood floor. Something lay on the bed, hidden under black sheets.
'Saiman?'
No answer.
Why me?
The wall to the left of the bed was all glass, and beyond the glass, very far below, stretched a very hard parking lot, bathed in the glow of feylanterns.
God, fifteen floors was high.
I pulled my saber from the back sheath and padded across the floor to the bed.
The body under the sheets didn't move.
Step.
Another step.
In my head, the creature hiding under the sheets lunged at me, knocking me through the window in an explosion of glass shards to plunge far below… Fatigue was messing with my head.
Another step.
I nudged the sheet with my sword, peeling it back gently.
A man rested on the black pillow. He was bald. His head was lightly tanned, his face neither handsome nor ugly, his features well-shaped and pleasant. Perfectly average. His shoulders were nude – he was probably down to his underwear or naked under the sheet.
'Saiman?' I asked softly.
The man's eyelids trembled. Dark eyes stared at me, luminescent with harsh predatory intelligence. A warning siren went off in my head. I took a small step back and saw the outline of several chains under the sheet. You've got to be kidding me. They didn't just chain him to the bed, they wrapped him up like a Christmas present. He couldn't even twitch.
'Good evening,' the man said, his voice quiet and cultured.
'Good evening.'
'You're my new bodyguard, I presume.'
I nodded. 'Call me Kate.'
'Kate. What a lovely name. Please forgive me. Normally I would rise to greet a beautiful woman, but I'm afraid I'm indisposed at the moment.'
I pulled back a little more of the sheet revealing an industrial-size steel chain. 'I can see that.'
'Perhaps I could impose on you to do me the great favor of removing my bonds?'
'Why did Rodriguez and Castor chain you?' And where the hell did they find a chain of this size?
A slight smile touched his lips. 'I'd prefer not to answer that question.'
'Then we're in trouble. Clients get restrained when they interfere with the bodyguards' ability to keep them safe. Since you won't tell me why the previous team decided to chain you, I can't let you go.'
The smile grew wider. 'I see your point.'
'Does this mean you're ready to enlighten me?'
'I'm afraid not.'
I nodded. 'I see. Well then, I'll clear the rest of the apartment, and then I'll come back and we'll talk some more.'
'Do you prefer brunets or blonds?'
'What?'
The sheet shivered.
'Quickly, Kate. Brunettes or blonds? Pick one.'
Odd bulges strained the sheet. I grabbed the covers and jerked them back.
Saiman lay naked, his body pinned to the bed by the chain. His stomach distended between two loops, huge and bloated. Flesh bulged and crawled under his skin, as if his body were full of writhing worms.
'Blond, I'd say,' Saiman said.
He groaned, his back digging into the sheets. The muscles under his skin boiled. Bones stretched. Ligaments twisted, contorting his limbs. Acid squirted into my throat. I gagged, trying not to vomit.
His body stretched, twisted, and snapped into a new shape: lean, with crisp definition. His jaw widened, his eyes grew larger, his nose gained a sharp cut. Cornsilk blond hair sprouted on his head and reached down to his shoulders. Indigo flooded his irises. A new man looked at me, younger by about five years, taller, leaner, with a face that was heartbreakingly perfect. Above his waist, he was Adonis. Below his ribs, his body degenerated into a bloated stomach. He looked pregnant.
