No Dogs in Philly (16 page)

Then ElilE smiled, the ugliest thing she’d ever
seen, a smile with no warmth, no love, no joy, nothing that
deserved a human smile—the smile of a cruel joke. And then he
laughed, a laugh to match his smile, bitter, horrid laughter. It
made her skin crawl.

“
You’ve talked to the Slow God
then, eh?” he said, the timbre of his voice completely changed, a
hateful, vicious sound. “What did she tell you? Did you meet her
servants, the ones you call hips, the ones that wear flowers in
their hair? They were human, right?” He leaned forward eagerly,
hands gripping the table, grinning, and she recoiled. “I am no
different, no less human than you, except that I am touched by the
Gods, I feel their presence and know their thoughts and guess
what?” He laughed again, hysterical, and stood and threw up his
hands. “I hate it! Hate! Hate,
hate
,
hate,
it’s all I
can feel anymore. Do you know what it’s like,” his voice became a
hiss, “to hear the Gods whispering in your ear, always whispering,
and to see the things beyond this world, great things, that really,
as a human, I couldn’t give a shit about, but I must know, and
understand and always fight, fight, fight—it is a
nightmare.”

His arm slashed down in a blur and the table
crumpled into a V against the force. He grabbed his chair and
slammed it against the wall and it flattened, smashed, pieces
flying across the room. She scrambled back into a corner; it seemed
like he grew and the light bent around him so he was a giant
towering over her, surrounded in shadows.

“
Do you think I want it this way?
To tiptoe around, to take this power,” he held up his arms, “and
use it to plant window gardens, and feed bureaucrats and
businessmen, children and fools and shit scum like you, always
coaxing and prodding and pleasing and asking—no!” He punched his
fist into the wall up to the elbow and then drew it out and laughed
again.

“
I would rule you! Command you.
Lay down the laws of my Gods and force humanity to join the fight,
to step up and look past your narcissistic masochism and play a
significant role in the universe! But no. No. Never that. Never
direct action, never bold, never strong, never open. You see, Saru,
you look at us and think that we have power, but you don’t know
what power is—of course not or you would see your own. The truth is
that we’re hiding, cowering here on this planet, terrified of the
UausuaU, the Hungry God, terrified it will notice us and act. The
horror it has wrought on you would be nothing,
nothing
, if
for the briefest particle of time it were to focus its attention on
this universe and actually perceive it as an object worthy of
attention. We hide, and lurk, and plot, and plan because any time
we act it must count; every blow must land, every strike find its
target or the Hungry God will flick a hair of its tail and
extinguish us all like fleas.

“
Find the girl! Find all these
girls! Sweep out across the city. Protect them. Do something; you
must do something! Ha! You see now, we will not. We cannot. Because
we are afraid. Afraid that these feasters, these servants of the
UausuaU will see our actions, see our power, see that we are
capable of thwarting a plan no matter how weak and tattered. And if
their inconvenience is perceived as anything other than the
retarded blundering of a sub-sentient life form then this planet
will go from food source to threat, and if you dislike how they
treat their food you cannot comprehend the doom that awaits their
enemies. Then you would know why they call my Gods the Sad
Gods.”

His face was twisted like some creature, a
gargoyle on a cathedral, his skin warped and wrinkled, jutting out
in hard lines, reptilian, demonic. She felt the hatred, the rage,
more than emotion; it was energy, heat washing through her, hurting
her, burning her insides. Her mouth was wet and her tracing finger
came away with blood. ElilE hissed out a breath and then inhaled
deeply. And then again, and again, and the rage sucked back, and
the hate was drawn out of her, making her lighter, freer. She
realized she’d been holding her breath and her heart was vibrating
in her chest. The shadows fell away, back to the harsh white LED
brightness. ElilE shrank down to his normal height, regaining his
normal, impeccable, mannequin calm. He held out a hand to help her
to her feet, but she scrambled away and stood on her own. They eyed
each other, falling into another silence.

She heard Terry in her mind, the words that
should have stuck the first time. Catch the bastard. Catch the
bastard. Catch him. She’d been going about this wrong the whole
time, searching and following. It was weak, reactionary,
un-American. Forget the girl. She would find the people doing
things, find where they lived, where they slept, where they kept
their polished skulls and scalpels, and hunt them down one by one
and open them, see how they liked having their intestines juggled.
Then, when she had their dicks on a spit and their pleas for mercy
as a su-tone, then she’d find the girl. She grinned, it bubbled,
impossible to choke down. She’d had ElilE pegged wrong the whole
time—the bastard was alright, relatable almost. She punched him in
the arm, for solidarity, and he took it. Maybe he grinned back,
gave her the flicker of a grin, or maybe she imagined it, fuck, who
cared?

“
Alright,” she said, still
grinning, ah, she couldn’t help it. It was just so damn
funny
. She laughed, a little at first, and then a whole
lot—ass-clenching, belly-aching laughter that bounced around the
room and only made her laugh more. Oh my God she was gonna piss
herself again. She laughed so hard she started to cry and had to
lean against the wall for support. Then she sorted herself out,
giggled and tried again. She looked ElilE in the eyes again, her
grin spilling out, biting down on it. She thought what it would be
like to fuck him, to see him unleash that power—that’s what he
needed, a good lay—and swore she would make it happen if she ever
got out of this mess tits-intact. Then she laughed all over
again.

“
Okay,” she said at last, gasping,
grabbing her belly. “I buy what you’re selling. Let’s do it. Let’s
find this bitch.”

Chapter 13

The doorbell rang, a happy melody indicating a
friend. How strange, who would visit him here? Who even knew where
he lived? Saru, probably, stopping by uninvited, sneaking by
security somehow, ready to kick down the door if he didn’t answer.
But he’d programmed a special ring for her, a sweet melody that was
nothing like her personality, but what he imagined her to be if he
ever really got to know her, to break down that tough facade and
meet the girl within. One day. And why wasn’t the camera working?
The security camera in the light fixture pointed right at the
doormat but he couldn’t make out the figure; it was tall, so it
could be Saru, but there was just a black smudge where the face
should have been.

Something was wrong here. The hairs across his
body were standing on end and it had nothing to do with what he was
doing on the Net. He started to unplug himself, feeling suddenly
very vulnerable, lying in a bathrobe on his couch with his brain
tugged in every direction. He left all the conversations, paused
all the videos, stopped the search for information about the girls
on the list. When his eyes returned to the real world he found them
crusty and blurry and saw that it was night. How many nights had
passed, how long had he been lying there? His stomach growled. The
doorbell rang again, and this time he heard it with his ears, the
sound chiming around his empty apartment—big, heavy, crystal noises
that filled him with dread. He buzzed security, no response. He
stumbled to his feet, tripped over the coffee table, and shuffled
to the drawer where he kept his gun. He’d never used it, wasn’t
sure how it worked or even what kind it was—shit, was it even
loaded? He backed up against the window, whirling when his ass
touched the glass and then whirled back and aimed at the door.
Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit…

There was a click and slide of the door
unlocking itself—how? It swung open slowly and the light from the
hallway crept in, a long, growing rectangle that cast Jojran in a
spotlight.

“
Freeze,” Jojran shouted, or tried
to—his voice cracked and came out cartoony. The gun shook in his
hands, slippery wet with sweat, hard to hold onto; he gripped it
tighter and then BANG! it went off with the sound of a cannon in
his ears, flying backward, snapping his wrist, slamming into his
mouth and bending back his two front teeth. He yelped at the pain
and the panic splashed out of him through his low-level connections
to the apartment. Every light, faucet and appliance sprang to
life—the kitchen and living room overheads, the LEDs and heaters in
the floor, the lamps, the oven, the microwave, the waffle iron, the
percolator, the pizzafast, and the mixing bowl, all the window
screens, the sonic shower, the autovacs shooting from their cubbies
and rolling around the floor, and his stereo blasting metal at
maximum volume. He fell to his knees and crawled to the bedroom
where the drawers rattled with the vibrations of his sex machines,
and his love doll moaned and begged for him. He slammed the door
behind him, swiped the lock, and dove onto the bed.

He sat, resisting the urge to crawl under the
covers, cradling his wrist, which was sending sharp, nauseating
pain through his arm and down to his stomach, every motion a fresh
nausea, a new threat of vomit. The gun was gone. He found his mind
bouncing around in his skull, desperate to escape, running down the
long hall of doors to the Net with so many wonderful
distractions—cute animals and naked women, bad puns, witty jokes,
endless streams of news and recipes for biscotti, games and viks
where he was safe and in control. He felt the familiar pull of the
Net and fought, fought to keep his focus on the terrifying present,
buzzing the guard station over and over again, calling everyone he
knew in the real world, which seemed suddenly to be no
one.

Saru wasn’t picking up—you bitch I’m gonna die
because of you! Where are you, passed out in a drunken stupor
somewhere? Grunting on your knees with that lawyer you love so
much? His mom answered the call and immediately started to
complain—you thief, you liar, what, do you need money? He hung up.
The cops, thank God, they were on their way! He just needed to hold
on. But when would they arrive? What had he told the officer? There
was a stranger in his house; he needed help. He felt a coldness
down his spine, mixing with the nausea in his stomach. What had
Saru told him about dealing with the cops? Rule number one: cash
upfront. He called back, ready to offer a fortune, but all he got
was a busy signal. It was hard to focus with the pain in his
stomach and his wrist and his mouth; he needed to search, find the
number of a mercenary, or private justice, get someone over but he
kept losing the thread, distracted by the fear.

The music outside stopped and his drawers
stopped clattering, the love doll stopped rubbing her nipples and
lay still. Footsteps, soft, coming close, stopping outside the
door.

“
Come out, Brian. You’re safe
now.” Oh thank God, it was Saru, and in the voice he’d always
imagined she’d use with him, breathy, soft, sweet, heavy with
suggestion. She’d even used his name, his real name that he’d never
told her, but somehow that contradiction didn’t bother him, the
voice was too sweet, he could feel it like a delicate finger
tracing down his neck, felt his pain recede, fall back, felt other
things, other sensations more pleasing rise to the surface. He
stood and walked to the door, unlocked and opened it. There she
was, as beautiful—no, more beautiful than he remembered, her
features finer, lips and breasts fuller, and she was smiling. She
smelled of tropical fruits and it looked like she’d even showered
and washed her hair.

“
Come,” she said, giving him a
smile that made him gasp. She held out her hand and led him back to
the living room, which was now quiet and dimly lit with candles
that he didn’t own. He knew now, knew that this was not Saru, not
the real Saru, but that if he wanted it he could have her, have her
forever and more, anything he wanted, anything at all if he would
pay the price. She guided him to a couch and pushed him down gently
so he floated into the cushions. His hand brushed her naked thigh
as she turned—of course, the real Saru never wore a dress like
that, shimmery and scant, that actually fit her and made every
curve a tease. She sat across from him, crossing her legs, and he
saw a flash of red lace between them. He felt himself melting in an
agony of desire, the pain of the broken wrist and teeth nothing
compared to this longing. She smiled at him.

“
You want me, Brian.”

“
Yes,” he breathed.

“
What else do you do
want?”

There were things he knew, power probably, not
like a king or a businessman, but power inside him, to be strong,
to be tall, to be brave maybe. To be perhaps the hero of a fantasy,
to wield a sword against the darkness, to be admired and loved and
to feel those deep, deep emotions that come from adventure. They
were stray thoughts, stupid thoughts, childish thoughts, hard to
control with her sex washing through him.

“
Don’t worry,” she said. “Whatever
you want you will have. Anything.”

From somewhere the fear returned, a small,
nagging thing. Memories of the women being cut open, of elzi
covered in sores and worms, wandering the streets, eating cigarette
butts and scraps and fresh meat when they could get it. Why would
he think of those awful things now? It annoyed him. But he should
ask, make sure everything was on the level. It seemed too good to
be true.