Eastlick and Other Stories Read online

  Did she imagine the hissing scorching sound, as spirit met flesh? Perhaps. Perhaps she did.

  She tipped her head back, lifted the bottle, poured a steady dribble down her own throat. Didn’t imagine the fierce bite of that, spirit on her own flesh, oh no.

  “Oh, that’s good.”

  She held the bottle out to Melanie. Waited a moment, nudged the other woman’s shoulder with the butt-end of it. It was tradition again, this ritual drink after.

  Melanie still didn’t move to take the whiskey. She shook her head against a question not asked, muttered, “I’ve never killed a man before. Not, not a human man...”

  Lady, you still haven’t. Aloud, Karen said, “Melanie. Take a drink.”

  ~o0o~

  She did, at last. And then they cleaned up, and Karen reran it all through her head and got mad again, and then cocky again, the taste of triumph like the taste of whiskey, hot and savage inside her—I did this—and then shrugged all of that away. Cocky or angry or defiant—none of that would do a body any good at all. Or a spirit, either. Not when it came to facing Grant.

  Time to put the bottle down, and turn her mind to water.

  They left the body for Colin and his team. Wanting a shower, Karen let her mind drift as Melanie drove the van through the night streets. A sheen of moisture clung to the pavement: not quite mist, heavier than fog: a strange clammy dew, slick under the worn tires. Even the weather was shifting, it seemed. Laying something down, skin on skin, like a declaration: What passes for normal, lady? That’s not normal now.

  She knew it. If it had been possible only to know one thing, that would have been the one. As it was—well. She knew too much. And had done either too much—way too much—or else too little, depending.

  It’s usually a mistake, she thought, to peer beneath the skin of things.

  ~o0o~

  Melanie had slowed almost to a crawl on a narrow road overhung with trees darker than the city night. They loomed above, vehicles of emptiness, leaning across to touch one another like shadow-memories of shape.

  “Where is it?”

  “Grant’s?” Karen stared out the windshield. Where were they? “Southside. You know that.”

  “No. The proof. You were meant to gather the proof. Where did you put it?”

  Questions tumbled in Karen’s startled mind like oils in turbulent water, clouding everything: How did Melanie know about the proof? And what did she want with it here, now? Or at all?

  This wasn’t the time to challenge her. Karen was uncomfortably aware that Melanie had reclaimed the knife.

  There wasn’t time to be clever, either. There never is.

  “Oh, fuck it. I just... There was so much mess everywhere, y’know? I just forgot. Do you want to go back?”

  “God, no,” Melanie said, shuddering. “No, I don’t. Besides, someone might be there by now.” It might be Colin. “We’ll just have to ’fess up and hope that Grant will trust us.” It’s your head on the block. She said that too, or she tried to—but it’s harder to lie in body language. There was something else that concerned Melanie, and it was nothing to do with Grant.

  After a minute, she shrugged and drove on: a little slowly, a little distracted. Karen took careful note of turnings, and of street signs as soon as there were any. Just in case it turned out to matter, later.

  They had to cross the river to get to Southside. Halfway over the bridge, Karen said, “Pull over a second.”

  “What for?”

  “Just do it. There’s no traffic; we’re safe enough. Right here, over water.”

  She could feel it, the flow of it deep inside her like a bass note thrumming, copper at the back of her tongue. Her skin tingled.

  Melanie stopped the van, turned in her seat: her turn to stare. Karen held her hand out.

  “Give me the knife.”

  “Wait, what? No! No, it’s my—”

  “It’s got my fingerprints all over it.”

  “No, we wiped it.”

  “Not literally.” Numbfuck. “The steel remembers. Do you think any blade ever would forget what we—what I just did with that knife? Come on, give. Grant will buy you another.”

  Blankly, Melanie handed over the knife. Blade first, like a threat. Karen pricked her finger as she took it, then opened the door and stepped out, went to the railing, and tossed the knife over.

  Black water glimmered, too far below. Between the dark and the distance and the reflected city lights, she hadn’t a hope of seeing the blade break water. Even so, she felt it. She thought she did. Felt something, at least: a satisfaction.

  Perhaps it was only relief—but steel remembers, and steel is only an expression of water. Water has a long, long memory.

  ~o0o~

  “I don’t get it.”

  That was Melanie, driving them away.

  “Call it an offering. Or a debt repaid.” Or just a precaution. Next time, I’m bringing my own knife. “Best not to forget who we work for.” And then, a sharp response to bewilderment, “Oh, for crying out loud! Do you think we’re some kind of free agents? Rebels on the edge? Down these mean streets a girl must walk who is herself as mean as they come? Get real, Melanie. We’re clerks, is all.”

  “We work for Grant.”

  “Grant is just a bureaucrat.” A bureaucrat with connections, but still. “It’s the big picture that matters, is what I’m saying.”

  And whose picture you chose to stand in, and whether you had a foot in one frame and a foot in another, and...

  ~o0o~

  “... And you brought the proof, of course?”

  Karen didn’t want to guess how much Grant had paid for the desk. Really, she thought, he should fit it with a glass top. Something that would wipe clean.

  “Of course,” she said, smiling, hoping that Melanie would see it reflected in his shades. “How else would you know it was the target that we killed, and not some poor innocent regular guy?”

  She reached into her pocket—these coveralls were so foul already, nothing mattered—fished out the revolting thing, and tossed it very deliberately onto the pristine oxblood leather surface of the desk.

  You shouldn’t have doubted me. Old man.

  If he was old. If he was a man. Who could tell?

  Behind her she could almost feel Melanie’s silent gasp, and the hot anger close on its heels. Karen let the smile linger on her face as she lifted hand to mouth and sucked the index finger slowly.

  Grant’s eyes widened; Melanie lost it altogether. Karen drew the finger out of her mouth and swallowed, relishing the sharp tang. It was mostly her own blood anyway, from the knife-prick on the bridge. “Don’t get any on my shoes, please.”

  Doubled over, Melanie emptied the contents of her stomach onto Grant’s Kashmir carpet.

  Karen took a small, deliberate step away and turned back to Grant. “So, about payment...”

  The gray-haired man gazed at Karen a moment longer, then brought forth an oversized white handkerchief trimmed with a thin line of embroidery. He unfolded the cloth slowly, almost making a ritual of it, engulfed the slimy thing in fabric, and drew it up.

  Blood soaked immediately through the white cloth. Was a fine linen barrier enough to protect him? Karen didn’t know; the depth of her own ignorance hit her like a punch to the stomach.

  Or perhaps that was just the sound—and the reek—of Melanie’s misery behind her.

  Karen shook her head. No distractions: not here, not now. She must focus on Grant. He was lifting the thing, bringing it closer to his face. His fingers seemed to absorb the ooze as soon as it touched his skin.

  She had wagered wrong, then.

  Just as well she had thought to add her own blood to the mix. She might actually live to see the dawn.

  “Very interesting.” Grant turned the bloody mass in his hand, glancing over at Karen. The dark glasses hid any expression, but his hand trembled. Age? Weakness? Or the other thing, too much power, barely controlled?

  Or ... was her own
power somehow finding a way?

  She blinked back at him, covering her thoughts as best she could. Melanie moaned. Karen could almost feel sorry for her.

  Almost.

  ~o0o~

  There was so much pretense in this room, masks beneath masks. Karen pretended to be baseline-human, normal, mercenary. Melanie pretended to be competent, experienced, loyal—though she’d given herself away quite thoroughly by now, and not only on Grant’s rug. Karen hadn’t forgotten that detour into unfamiliar streets, or the abortive demand.

  And then there was Grant. The gray hair, the dark glasses, the thousand-dollar suit—he might be anything, almost, except what he appeared to be: a mature businessman with clean hands.

  The only honest thing they had between them was the proof, that little worm of pseudoflesh he’d masked in his handkerchief. That at least was nothing more than it seemed to be.

  When the public talked about worms, they meant the victims, the possessed: They worm their way amongst us, seeming human, seeming just like us. Corrupt, demonic, deadly...

  You could always trust the public to confuse themselves and each other, blame the victim, burn the innocent. This time, though, burning the innocent was unavoidable, Karen’s own job. There was no cure for the possessed. These twists of matter she cut out were a residue, a seedcase, something left behind; excision was always fatal. She’d stopped trying to be careful. Quick was better. Whether anything of the host abided, some deep-buried sense of horror, she had no idea. And no way to learn. Grant’s people were presumably experimenting—why would they collect these proofs so assiduously if not to find out what they were, what they were made of, what they signified?—but Grant would never tell her anything. Whatever else he was or might be, he was an old-fashioned bureaucrat at heart: giving orders, sharing nothing, keeping his juniors in ignorance.

  It was her private pleasure to be keeping her own secrets. He no more knew the truth about her than she did about him. Less: he didn’t even know that there was more to learn.

  She hoped he didn’t know. It would be folly to underrate him.

  He said, “I have another task for you. You’ll be paid when it’s done.”

  Of course. There was always something more. A mask beneath the mask, a task beneath the task.

  Still. Every man contained his own proof. It was only a matter of finding it within him.

  She said, “What do you want of me this time?”

  ~o0o~

  At least he didn’t make her bring Melanie. Karen drove the van back into the city, wondering if she’d ever see the other woman again. Carpets could be cleaned; it was the stained soul that was more problematic. Grant understood that.

  She turned off the highway into side streets that narrowed into lanes. Here were trees again; she was miles from Melanie’s detour, but here too they edged into the roadway, their wide roots cracking the sidewalk, their branches dropping leaves and seeds onto parked cars.

  Trees. Why was she noticing trees so much? Because they are another expression of water, fool. Tonight was all about water, and what it brought. The icy depths of the river; the invasive fingers of the mist; the tap she and Melanie had run and run, to clean up after the extermination.

  Near the end of the block, she slowed the van, searching for a number. There it was: a small pale house cowering underneath a huge and ancient willow. The tree with the closest affinity to water...

  She left the van at the corner, blocking a fire hydrant. Let them try to give her a ticket.

  A voice whispered from the shadows, “Ill met on a dark night.”

  Karen didn’t shift her head or her pace. “I am not here to meet you, minion.”

  The house was only gently protected; she barely felt the touch of power as she climbed the steps, put her hand on the doorknob, waited three breaths and went inside.

  Colin nodded at her from where he waited before the fire.

  “No,” Karen whispered. This was wrong, and more wrong. “Not you.”

  He was on his feet fast, his hands in her hair, his tongue in her mouth.

  Her mad hot dumb lust flared up as it always did, every single goddamn time.

  She didn’t even fight it anymore. What was the point? It would only take longer, and she’d lose anyway. Moaning, she leaned into his body, pulling him close.

  He kissed her harder, then reached for the buttons on her coveralls.

  It was only then that he noticed all the blood.

  Karen had to swallow down a smile as he pretended not to recoil. It was drying now; he didn’t get much on his own clothes, but she could feel the revulsion in him, in the hesitation of his hands. Then he shrugged quickly and bit into her mouth again, masking it with lust of his own.

  Just for a moment there, he had made her think of Grant again; but pretense became reality again soon enough, as their bodies followed well-worn pathways in the firelight. This was Grant’s opposite, all down the line: urgent and immediate, naked and truthful and exposed. Nowhere to hide, and nothing left worth hiding...

  ~o0o~

  Karen buttoned up the rank denim garment without washing herself first. Whatever she might take away from this, whatever she could keep: she knew its value. Long past any plans or dreams—only keeping her eyes open, her back covered, her mouth shut—all she could do was collect what might be useful, and try to stay ahead of the falling blade.

  Mike... All unbidden, his sweet, uncertain face came back to her as she reached for her boots. She pushed the image away—and thought how strange it was that she could do that, where she couldn’t thrust aside her simple animal need for Colin, her thrall to his desire. Mike was opposite again, orthogonal to this whole dark world of hers; and he would only stay safe so long as she kept him so. And that meant keeping on as she was going. Never pausing. Never doubting.

  Never regretting.

  Colin came back from the bathroom, buttoning his jeans. Not a word from either of them about what had just passed: some moments lay outside words, beyond reason.

  “So,” Karen said. “What did you do with him?”

  Colin nodded to the darkened hallway at his back. Karen could see water-stained lavender wallpaper, curling up where the seams didn’t quite meet. A door ajar, halfway back. Now that she was paying attention again, there was a low, fetid smell.

  “Do I even need to look?”

  He shook his head.

  “All right.” She was on her feet now, boots laced as tightly as her soul. It was all about control, in the end. Exposure and control. What you showed, and to whom; what you kept for yourself.

  ~o0o~

  She drove slowly through the predawn streets, aimless, worried. Not about Grant. He would be angry, perhaps, that Colin had gotten to the body first, but it was hardly her fault. She’d been following procedure; he was the one making changes, late, too late. She thought likely it was blood that he wanted. He’d just have to look elsewhere. There was enough of it about, for pity’s sake, in this city these days.

  Pathways of information were as convoluted as city streets; she wanted a map, and didn’t believe there was one. Any more than there was a single city, that a single map could chart. What Grant knew was not what Colin knew, far and far from whatever Mike might know.

  And then there was what she knew herself, layers beneath layers...

  She drove without purpose, just keeping the van on the move, winding through the streets. After a time, she pulled over and parked, rubbed her eyes, sighed. Only then did she realize what she was about: waiting for the sun to rise. Not returning to Grant while the night sky held sway overhead, cold and compressed. While the streams and eddies of power favored his kind, and not hers.

  First light of dawn would be soon enough, to go to him. No matter that she was lost, and killing time; she wasn’t too proud to admit even to herself that she was only roaming the streets at night for fear of...

  Fear of what? Something indeterminate, something inchoate in the back of her head, in the corner of her e
ye: a whisper in the fog, a shadow astray, a touch of chill. She couldn’t tell, except that there was something. It had been nagging at her all night: more than Melanie, surely, though thinking of the other woman made Karen mad all over again. Had it all started with the knife, the way Melanie had just handed it to her?

  No, before that: when Grant had sent the two of them to do one woman’s job in the first place. Belatedly, Karen wondered if she was meant to be training Melanie. Of course Grant wouldn’t come right out and tell her so: she might think she was training her own replacement. She might be right...

  Karen felt a faint tingle at the back of her throat and glanced out, suddenly aware of her surroundings. She was on the west side of the city, down by the river, after passing warehouses and parking lots and rusty, abandoned cargo containers with weeds growing tall around their bases. Dawn would be here soon, and she was a good twenty minutes from Grant’s.

  She turned the engine back on, hauled the van into a wide U-turn across the deserted quay, and drove.

  ~o0o~

  The guards seemed hesitant, or distracted; or perhaps that was just Karen’s night mood carrying forward into the cold gray sunless morning. She noted it and disregarded it, nodding back to them as she drove up the long lane to the main house. Just one more piece of information, useless without context.

  Useless like her side of the bed tonight, her pillow, empty next to Mike. That had a context, but it was all evidence of absence.

  Useless like his gentle sad sigh when he awoke alone—again!—that she could almost hear, clear across town.

  She shook away the thought as she killed the headlights before they could shine in through the front windows of the house. Sentimental! Moping over Mike. As if that would do either of them any good. There was no room for sentiment here. For weakness. For doubt.

  She hesitated, though, on the wide front porch, her hand already on the doorknob. Something was different; something made her doubt.

  A new scent in the air.

  A female scent.

  Here? In the seat of Grant’s power, his control...?

  Stifling a sudden urge to flee, Karen stood taller and opened the door.