Chapter #64A Cross Examination by: Seuzz   You call Kali. If you can get through to her quickly, maybe you can get her permission to get the police out here before the lunatic regains consciousness.
"Yes, Will?" she trills when she picks up.
"Kali! A man broke into the apartment! A homeless lunatic or something! I knocked him out, but do I need to call the police?"
"Will, say that again," she says.
"A man broke into the apartment. He's crazy. I knocked him out and got away, but I'm going downstairs to get the security people. Do you want me to get them? Because I thought maybe you don't want the cops inside your apartment."
"No one wants the police inside their home, Will, but better them than a lunatic. Are you okay?"
"Yeah, but only because my invisibility trick kicked in."
"Aren't you wearing your necklace?"
"I'd just got out of the shower. I didn't have any clothes on."
"Well, they might arrest you if you're naked. But I don't understand how a--What makes you think he was crazy?"
"He was dressed and stank like a homeless man, and he was waving a knife around and muttering to himself."
"What was he muttering?"
"Creepy nursery rhymes about gutting fish. Kali, are you alright? You suddenly sound--"
"I'm fine, child. Have you got the security guard yet?"
"No." You've just put your hand on the stairwell door.
"Then I want you to go back upstairs and find the gentleman, and apologize to him and entertain him until Miko and I return. Please don't tell him he smells."
"You want me to what?"
"You heard me. His name is Richard Bredon, and he is one of your colleagues. I wasn't expecting him until tomorrow, or I would have warned you about each other."
* * * * *
The hand shoots through the crack between the elevator doors almost before they have started to open. It grasps you by the neck and thrusts you back against the elevator wall. The lunatic flashes the knife before your eyes.
"Are you Richard Bredon?" Your voice is a strangled squeak.
His eyes glint. "Who wants to know?"
"Will Prescott?"
"You asking me permission to be Will Prescott?"
"You can call Kali. Please call Kali."
His fingers shift along the side of your neck. "I press here, and you'll die in a way that will mystify every coroner in the world."
"I'm sorry," you squeak. "Kali told me to apologize, and--"
"Well, why didn't you say so, squirt?" He lowers the knife. "Instead of wasting my time out here. Might've had to kill witnesses if they'd caught us like this. Come on back to the house."
Your knees almost give out, but you manage to totter after him.
"Hold it." He stops you in the doorway, and his head moves fractionally. "Okay, come in. Close the door. Get a mop. Wanna drink?"
"A mop?"
"You pissed yourself by the sofa. Kali won't like the smell." You restrain yourself from mentioning his smell. "What's your poison?"
"Uh ... Coke? And I don't know where--"
"Try the laundry room, that's where people usually keep mops. Check the cabinets for special stuff, too."
"Like detergent?" you call back as you duck into the laundry room.
"Like tequila. Rum. Scotch. Gin. Kali's a prim little choir girl, and I'm a day early. I wouldn't look for it in her kitchen. Not yet."
"Holy ... Spirits! It's like a liquor store in here!"
"She's hospitable. So'm I. Pick whatever you want."
"I'll stick to Coke, if--"
"Faugh. How old did you say you are?"
"Seventeen."
"Trick question. You didn't say. Seventeen? You're old enough to die without it being a tragedy, squirt. You're old enough to drink."
* * * * *
"Pffwaugghhhkkkk!" A cloud of alcoholic vapor explodes out your chest and into the room. The stuff is raw, burning. You hack and cough, long and loudly.
Bredon ignores you, and to his lips lifts a second glass of the most evil spirit you think could be poured into a shot glass without melting it. His eyes crinkle up with pleasure, and he gulps it down thirstily. "It was a long drive," he says, and pours a third shot. "Long and dry and thirsty. You ever driven across Utah? Nevada?"
"No sir."
"Don't call me 'sir'. Just 'Rick'. Well, squirt, if you never have the pleasure and wanna know what it's like, just put an iron skillet over a medium flame, coat the bottom with kosher salt, and fall asleep with your face in it." He raises the third glass. He'd knocked back the first, guzzled noisily at the second, but this third one he sniffs and breathes in, as though it's an expensive wine and not something that was rejected as paint thinner. A beatific expression spreads over his face. His nostrils flare, and it seems to you that the level of liquid in the glass falls by a small but measurable amount.
"I'm not much of a drinker," you say, feeling embarrassed by your performance with your own glass.
"This stuff is an acquired taste."
"You like it?"
"It's liquefied garbage. But I'm putting down a layer. I'll cover it up with better stuff later." He knocks the shot glass back, and leaves his head hanging back as he follows it by gulping down great draughts of air. He leans back in his chair, his eyes closed. "So you're the new squirt."
"Yes sir. Rick. Um, could you please not call me--"
"Scuttlebutt says you're another Sulva."
"Yeah." And then you realize he'd said "another." "What do you mean by another Sulva?"
"There's only ten planets, squirt, we gotta share."
"But Kali said I was the only Sulva in the Stellae. That they're rare." Something in his manner puzzles you, and it's not the way he keeps calling you "squirt." "Are you a Sulvae?"
"Nah. Malacandra, Eldibria. And rare don't mean unique. What'd she tell you about Sulvae?"
"That they're hard to find."
His lips twitch and he lifts a single eyelid. "How long you been in training?"
"Less than a week."
"What can you do?"
"You mean, like, Sulva powers?"
"Can you play the piano or find the reciprocal of a fraction?"
"Uh, no to the first, and I'd have to remember what--"
"I'm asking about 'Sulva powers'," he says, putting heavy sarcasm on the last two words.
You redden. This isn't as bad as Kali's questioning, but it is almost as unnerving. "Well, I'm not sure yet. That's what training is for, isn't it?"
"So what have you already found? You ain't ashamed, are you? Like it's a trick you gotta take your clothes off for?"
You redden a little more. "Well, I don't know how I do it, but apparently I can hide in plain sight. Kali says it's like I can make people not notice me, even when I'm in front of them. I think I must've--"
"Yeah, you did. But do you gotta take your clothes off to use it, like the Invisible Man?"
"I wasn't-- I'd just got out of the shower. There weren't any towels and I was looking for one when--"
"Ah! Well, there's your trouble. That shower. I wouldna found you otherwise. Maybe wouldna even suspected you were there." He sniffs. "I'm about ready for another drink. You?"
"Of what?"
"Gin, this time. Yeah, it's a neat trick you got, squirt."
"How did you find me? Watching you, I thought you were a-- Well, I thought you were a crazy homeless man who'd broken in."
He smiles mirthlessly as he pours a shot for you and him both. "I said, the water from your shower. Even before you pissed yourself. I could smell it, smell you, smell something in the room. I don't mean literally 'smell'." He sniffs at the shoulder of his jacket and makes a face. "I can hardly smell anything. But I knew there was something off, and I don't like finding 'off' things in a friend's apartment. So I went lookin'. Just a matter of finding the layer you were swimming in." He shrugs.
Showers. It seems like a diplomatic way to make a hint. "Would you like a shower, get cleaned up after your drive?"
He flicks you an amused glance. "I hate the stuff, squirt."
"What stuff?"
"Water. Hate it. What else you got goin' in your favor?" He drinks very slowly, so slowly it might be a tumbler rather than a shot glass he's sucking back. He sets it back with a satisfied "Ah!" and looks over into the living room. "The kid was one of her favorites," he says.
You glance back into the living room, and spot Joe's mask sitting on that table. "Joe, you mean? You know about those things?"
"I put the kid and the cadet on their trail."
"Oh. Well, I brought that thing out with me. I used it while traveling, as a temporary disguise, and gave it to Kali when I got here."
"She had you putting it on and taking it off?"
"No. She's taught me how to meditate--"
"Baby's first steps."
"Look, I don't know how much to tell you--"
"You can tell me anything, squirt, and you probably will without realizing it. It's a lot of fun for me, figuring it all out while you're trying to hide it, but you'll like it better if you just take your clothes off again and lemme have a direct look at you."
He's one of your new colleagues, but you feel a responsibility to Kali to not disclose anything further about yourself without her permission. Besides, this guy might be like Miko, and have settled ideas about what should be done with someone who is "entangled" with the Libra.   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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