Chapter #24Starstruck by: Seuzz   Greystoke smiles at you, the kind of smile that comes straight from Hell. No, not the fire-and-brimstone smile of gleeful, eternal, sadistic torment; nor the Satanic smile of a Dark Lord gloating over a dainty. It's the Cheshire smile of a world bending to reveal its pleasure at your impending discomfiture.
You can do nothing but punch it. So you swing.
He blocks with his forearm—a shattering blow—then catches your wrist and wrenches your entire arm in a direction nature never intended it to go. You stifle a shriek as you bend double; fruitlessly (comically, probably, to anyone watching) you hop on one leg and feebly kick at his shin. You might a well kick a fire hydrant. "What are you doing, little girl," you hear Greystoke say, and a flame of hope flares when you remember Patterson and the snoozegun. But then—
"Let go!" the girl yells. You twist your head, and see that Greystoke has grabbed her by one hand and is holding her up in the air; her purse falls to the tile, spilling its contents. The snoozegun skitters away. But not quite out of reach.
Greystoke still has you by the wrist, and he yields a little as you drop to the floor and with your free hand scramble for the snoozegun. He yanks you back, but not before your fingers close around the weapon. You swing around, aiming—
And Greystoke kicks you in the face. He's still holding your arm, and your shoulder screams as the ball pops from the socket. Blood fills your eyes, but you keep hold of the snoozegun and fire. You are careful only to squeeze the trigger once, though you'd dearly love to make sure by squeezing twice.
Greystoke lets go of you. You fall back onto the floor.
Dimly you hear doors opening and voices shouting. You hide the snoozegun in a pocket and try getting to your feet. Someone urges you to stay down, and they make the mistake of touching your shoulder. You scream.
* * * * *
The cops, to your dismay, are very quick to arrive. You and the girl and the unconscious Greystoke are bundled into a gray van once a few perfunctory questions get answered. You chew your lip furiously, trying to figure out a fast way to get back to Diana, preferably with Greystoke. Then one of the cops gently touches your arm. "Want some help getting that back in, Kips?" he says.
You look up sharply. From under the brim of the police cap a pair of slanted eyes grin back at you. They weren't slanted a minute ago. "Liu?"
"Say when."
"Gyah!" You writhe as he pushes the arm back into place. "Oh, fuck!"
"Now I need a cigarette," he laughs. "Not so good for you, but a pleasure for me."
"Just wait'll tonight," you gasp. "How'd you get here so fast? Christ, I'll come over to your place and play Chiyoko all night for you, I'm so glad to see you, you goddamned monkey prince, you."
"Your partner called us while you were still upstairs. Fuck you, Kips, you're slacking."
"Patterson? What did he—?"
"I thought I saw Greystoke out the window," the little girl says, "so I called backstage and asked what we should do."
"You should have said something to me!"
"I was going to before we hit the door, but he surprised us."
"I mean while we were at Deborah's!"
"I didn't want to interrupt."
"Next time, interrupt! Christ! Oh, but holy fuck!" You look around Liu, at the prone figure of Greystoke. "Oh, but it's gonna be a holiday down in elfland. Just make sure you keep him dosed up." You sink back onto the van bench and close your eyes.
* * * * *
You change skins at Diana—quickest way to dull the pain, though a lot still lingers even in the new disguise—and sink gratefully into one of the plusher chairs in Dey's office. Lucille smiles as she hands you a cup of tea. There's something of an edge to her expression; you sniff the tea experimentally. Lovely girl, she's spiked it with a little vodka. You sip it gratefully as she extends a similar cup to Gallion, who is sitting beside you.
"A good day all around," says Julian Dey as he sits on the sofa opposite. "A nice change. But let's not get cocky."
You're happy, but not so happy you haven't any bitterness to spare for the presumptuous "us" in let's.
"I hope you didn't yell too hard at Patterson," you tell Knotts, the fourth of your quartet at this meeting. "If he hadn't called in—"
"We'd be exactly where we are now," she says briskly. "That's why I busted his Jack to a Deuce."
"The fuck? That's bogus, Knotts! Sure, he shoulda told to me after making Greystoke, but that call still saved our asses."
"Your asses were safe the moment you walked out of here," she says, and her eyes are as hard as her voice. "That's what our meeting was about yesterday morning. Hermod gave our outside comms a clean bill of health. Your meeting with Deborah this morning was a test." She smiled tightly. "Remember I told you that we'd try flushing out any bedbugs when our comms were back up?"
You lower your cup. "Why didn't you tell me I was bait?"
"Because you're a lousy poker player, and I didn't want the celebrities reading your tells. Stoddard and Muniz were watching the front of your contact's building, and I put Liu and Gallion two blocks away in our police van, ready to dash in at a moment's notice if anything janky happened. So when Greystoke showed, I didn't need Patterson to call in. The others had you covered."
"You're welcome again," Gallion says, preening more than a little.
"But right now," Dey interrupts, "we have an infiltration to manage. This is beyond the zampos' competence—"
"Everything's beyond their competence," you snort.
Dey pretends to laugh. "So we're going to see if you can do any better."
You whirl on Knotts. "Wait, I'm playing zampo for Stoddard and Muniz? What kind of bullshit demotion is this?"
"We need a chameleon, not a badger, to zampo this one," she says. "Gallion will ride shotgun with you. Get jeans, a shirt and a hoodie, something that'll take any male form and a couple of females without changing," she says, looking between you and your partner. "We dropped Stoddard and Muniz in a holding cell—a special corner Nerio reserves at a booking precinct and makes available to us on a courtesy basis. Stoddard should have his new tat ready within the hour, and you need to be on hand to shadow him and Muniz once they're released."
"Done. But speaking of shadows—"
"Yes?"
"Aw, skip it. Apparently I'm only on a 'need to know' footing these days."
Knotts rolls her eyes. "What do you want to know?"
"Did you pattern Stoddard and Muniz before giving them this assignment?"
Knotts says nothing immediately. "I considered it," she says. "Anything else?"
"Well, did you 'consider' it a good idea to deal Stoddard into this game without putting Greystoke into that shadow mind first?"
"The shadow mind takes too long to operate," Dey says with a frown. "We wanted to move on this immediately."
"Greystoke is in the freezer for the nonce," adds Knotts. "The elves want to put a test subject in the shadow mind before risking a high-value asset like Greystoke. That's all," she says as you open your mouth to ask another question.
* * * * *
You don't change skins before heading out: you'd put on a round-faced chav with a shaved head when you got back to Diana, and he fits your chosen wardrobe just fine. You take a car from the pool and park near the address Knotts gave you, in an alley where you can see the entry. You don't like the wait, and only grunt irritably when Gallion tries to talk. You worry: the longer Stoddard is in stir, the more suspicious the celebrities are likely to be of who comes out. But as it's getting dark, two figures emerge.
One of them is Muniz, though his look is that of a red-head who, if the light is dark and the angle bad, could be mistaken for someone distantly related to your birthday skin. Even at a distance he looks pinched and furtive and unhappy. It would be an expected attitude, since at his side is a tall, broad-shouldered man, pale of face and dark of hair, in work jeans and a rust-colored hoodie. The giant contemptuously pushes Muniz forward and follows while gazing around serenely. At the sidewalk, he takes a cell phone from his pocket and makes a call while clutching Muniz by the arm.
The conversation doesn't last long, and Stoddard—for that is your colleague wearing a long-desired tat of Greystoke—leads Muniz down the street to a bus stop. Fifteen minutes later, they get on a bus. You follow.
It's dark, and a light rain has begun to fall, and you're directly behind the bus, stopped at an intersection. The bus grinds into motion; you let it get a little distance ahead before following. It has just cleared the intersection, and you're in the middle of it, when there's a screeching of tires, and a terrific blow knocks your car sideways. A moment later, as you're still gripping the wheel, a gentler blow from the other side spins your car one hundred-eighty degrees off course. The car shudders to a halt.
Shouts from outside, curses. You jump out, glaring at the disappearing bus, then look around. On the corners, every light is flashing green, then amber, then red, and back again.
When you and Gallion try sprinting after the retreating bus, angry hands lay themselves on you.
You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
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