Poison Sleep (12 page)

Hmm. A problem, but not an unexpected one. Gregor had warned him that Marla might have defenses like this, and they had discussed strategies. Zealand knew the floor plans for these apartments. He went to the next apartment and knocked imperiously at the door. No one responded. Zealand’s surveillance indicated that Marla lived alone here, but guests were always a possibility. The assassin picked the lock laboriously. He could kill in a thousand different ways, from the subtle to the extreme, but he’d never been much good at picking locks. He could have broken the door open, but he didn’t want to leave any warnings for Marla.

He finally opened the lock and went into the apartment. A little light came in through the window from the one working streetlight outside, and he used a flashlight for the rest. Boxes were piled everywhere, and a cursory examination revealed old clothes, paperback books, mismatched dishes, and other detritus. Marla probably used this apartment for storage.

He went into the bedroom, noting the scurry of mice. He opened the closet door, and found the space beyond empty. Why use the closet when the whole apartment was her closet? He rapped his knuckles on the wall and smiled. Cheap apartments, thin walls. He drew a hammer, chisel, and miniature hacksaw from his bag, then placed the chisel against the wall and tapped it lightly. The chisel punched right through the wall. Working quickly, listening for the sound of Marla’s door opening, he cut a large rectangular hole near the bottom of the closet. Once he had a hole big enough to squeeze through, he pulled out the dirty cotton-candy-like insulation. He tugged on the few wires in his way experimentally and decided they would spread apart without breaking when he wriggled through.

Using the saw and the chisel, he carefully cut a corresponding section from Marla’s wall. He would enter her apartment, a mirror-image of this one, through her bedroom closet. He eased out the chunk of drywall and shone his light into the space beyond.

Hanging clothes, various shoes and boots, and the closed door. He wriggled through into Marla’s closet, then reached up and tried the doorknob. It turned, and he pushed the door open incrementally, his ears straining for any sound. Nothing, not even the creak of the closet door. Good. He wouldn’t have to bother oiling the hinges.

He stood and stepped into her dark bedroom, shining his flashlight. The room was messy, dominated by an unmade king-sized bed with a heavy iron frame. A large mirror with elaborate scrollwork hung on the wall, but it needed to be cleaned, and clothes lay piled on the floor and on top of a cheap wooden dresser with its drawers half-open. The nightstand by the bed held several heavy tomes, a dusty glass of water, and a blue vibrator. The only beautiful object in the room was a large wooden wardrobe, intricately carved with snakes and vines, standing against the far wall, next to the door. He went closer, intrigued, and saw runes similar to those outside cut into the wood near the door handles. He didn’t bother to reach for them, but he wondered what sort of treasures lay within. Probably nothing he’d know how to use anyway. Sorcerer things.

He went into the living room, surprised to find it almost completely bare. A cheap plywood shelf dominated one wall, covered with leatherbound books, but there was no other furniture, and the floor had been stripped of carpet. He stepped into the bathroom. Cracked porcelain and a water-stained basin—about what he’d come to expect. The bedroom provided the best hiding place, the closet especially. He would lie in wait there. Perhaps he’d even be able to kill Marla while she slept.

He returned to the bedroom, careful not to disturb the piles of clothing and old magazines, and got back into the closet, sitting behind the hanging clothes. He opened his bag and withdrew one of the few high-tech devices he liked, a tiny fiber-optic camera with a wide-angle lens that he snaked under the crack beneath the closet door. The camera cable plugged into a little handheld monitor, giving him a sharp, high-contrast image of Marla’s dim bedroom. He’d be able to watch and wait for the optimal moment to strike. Now, though, it was just waiting. Marla’s work hours varied wildly, and with his luck, this would be the night she decided to stay out until 4 A.M. Ah, well. Gregor was paying him well for his patience. Zealand settled in.

Kissing Joshua in the back of the limo was the most sensually pleasurable thing Marla had ever done, better than the first taste of caterpillar rolls from her favorite sushi restaurant, better than a soak in the hot tub after a hard workout, better than fifteen minutes alone in bed with some well-thumbed porn and a Hitachi magic wand. Kissing him was like the way she’d imagined kissing boys would be back in junior high, a delicious act of transformational wonder.

She managed to break the kiss—she was in danger of melting against Joshua with a long low moan of pleasure, and once she did
that,
she’d be like everyone else who’d ever been trapped in his spell, and why would she interest him then? She saw the irony, of course. She’d started out being mean to Joshua to show him that she wouldn’t fall victim to his lovetalker’s charms, and now that he seemed attracted to her indifference, she was using that to try to seduce
him
. Marla wasn’t sure how exactly she’d tumbled into this tangled relationship, but it felt good, and for the moment, she was willing to roll with it.

“You’re a hell of a kisser, Joshua Kindler,” she said, touching his cheek for a moment, then leaning back against the seat of the limo. Being in such close quarters with him was increasingly intoxicating. The limo moved slowly down the icy streets, so it would be a few minutes before they reached her building. Would she be able to keep herself from climbing on top of him in the meantime? She opened the window a crack, letting in a stream of cold, refreshing air. Did it clear her head a little? Maybe his powers
were
based on pheromones. “Most lovetalkers just stick their tongues down your throat and have done with it, I’ve heard. You actually seem to care about your technique.”

“You seem to be constantly surprised that I’m not a beast. I haven’t met anyone else with my power. Hamil tells me we tend not to get along, perhaps for the same reason queen bees can’t stand the presence of another queen—not that I’m a queen, mind you, as I hope you’ll find out soon—but I’m sad to hear most of them are so indifferent in their manners. I was raised better, I suppose.”

“Sorry, Joshua. You seem like a good guy, but then, you
would,
wouldn’t you? The very fact that I like and trust you gives me grounds to dislike and mistrust you, you know?”

He sighed and shifted a little in the seat, and it was, somehow, like watching a perfect statue settle itself into an even more perfect pose. “I cannot help what I am, Marla. I didn’t go to the crossroads at midnight and make a deal with the devil. But I am more than a lovetalker. I am a man. And I am often bored. You’re the first interesting thing to come along in ages.”

“People who get whatever they want for the asking are often bored. Having something that challenges you a bit is more interesting. Maybe you should play more games. Though people would probably just lose on purpose to make you happy.”

“I don’t think
you
would lose just to please me,” Joshua said, smiling.

“When I play, I play just as hard as I can,” she agreed.

“Are you playing with me now?” Joshua asked, as if the question was very serious.

“I’m not exactly what you’d call a hedonist, Joshua, but I’m not indifferent to pleasure, and, well…I’ve made love to a few men, and a couple of women, and even an incubus—that’s a story for another time—but they say sex with a lovetalker is an experience unlike any other.”

“According to the old stories, it ruins you for all other love,” Joshua said. “Those seduced by the Ganconer pine away unto death when their lovers leave them. But you don’t strike me as the pining type.”

“Guys who fall for me tend to get their hearts not so much broken as disintegrated into their component molecules. So watch
yourself,
Joshua.”
Was that too presumptuous? Am I giving myself too much credit?
He was a lovetalker. He could have anyone. Really, why would she assume she was anything more than a passing fancy for him?

But he only nodded, still serious, and said, “Duly noted. You know the way very wealthy people often worry whether anyone loves them for
themselves,
or if all who profess adoration for them are merely pretending love to disguise greed?”

“Sure,” Marla said, seeing where this was going, a little uneasy about how to respond.

“Well. You can imagine how it must be for me. I can never tell if anyone likes me for myself. Most people are wholly unaware of my ‘self.’ I am just…a projection to them. A smell, a taste, a touch, a fantasy, something they adore because it is my nature to be adored, and they do not look at me as a human being. But I
am
a person, Marla, and it can be very lonely to be universally loved. Sometimes, I wonder if it might be possible to rid myself of this power, and live the way other people do.” He paused. “But then I remember how much I enjoy oral sex and caviar on demand, and I resign myself to my lot.”

Marla laughed. “Joshua, I believe you just made a
joke
.”

He raised one eyebrow. “Sometimes I surprise even myself.”

The limo pulled up in front of her building, and Marla activated the intercom to speak to the driver. “We’ll let ourselves out. No need for you to go into the cold.” She opened her door and stepped onto the sidewalk, and Joshua scooted over to let himself out after her.

The limo drove away, a black shadow swallowed by the cold night, and Joshua looked up at Marla’s building. She saw it with fresh eyes, the way he surely did, as a battered old flophouse that probably warranted demolition. But she loved the place, and she pointed, saying, “See the gargoyles up there, on the corners by the roof? They’re replicas of famous gargoyles, from Notre Dame and Duke University, and other places. There’s only one that’s original, that one there on the left that looks like a lizard with a rooster comb. The gargoyles were the first thing that attracted me to this place. I’ve looked at the old building plans, and there’s no mention of that kind of architectural flourish. Somebody added them after the fact, and I don’t know who—the construction site boss, the first owner, who knows? They’re totally ornamental, not even real waterspouts.”

“Are they…magical?” Joshua said, clearly trying to understand the appeal. “Do they watch the street for you, or come to life, or anything like that?”

“Nah,” Marla said. “They’re just statues. I could make them come to life, but they wouldn’t move too gracefully, and they probably wouldn’t be inclined to hang out on my building anymore. Come on up. My place isn’t much to look at, but it’s private, and warm.” She led him through the dusty lobby to the elevator, slid open the grate, and gestured for him to enter. They rode up to the fifth floor in silence, and when they stepped out into her hallway, Joshua said, “You know, if you weren’t the undisputed ruler of the supernatural side of Felport, I would feel like I was slumming.”

“Yeah, well, I like to keep people guessing. Besides, compared to how I grew up, this is palatial. There’s a magical ward on the place to keep the roaches out, it’s likewise magically climate-controlled, the roof doesn’t leak, and best of all, I’ve got the
whole
building to myself.” Which wasn’t strictly true. The cantankerous ghost of a pensioner who’d died here in the flophouse days lived on the third floor, but he was only manifest two or three times a month. “I used to have magical wards set up to keep out intruders, but a couple of street kids got hurt when they tried to break in last winter, so now the nasty spells are limited to the doors and windows of my apartment. I don’t care if the occasional homeless guy seeks shelter in the lobby.”

Marla touched certain runes hacked into the frame around her door, blocking her movements from Joshua’s view with her body, not because she distrusted him necessarily, but out of simple secret-keeping habit. The runes flared blue for a moment, then went dark, and she pushed open the door and gestured for Joshua to enter. She showed him where to find the bathroom when he asked, tried briefly to tidy up a bit, then quit, annoyed at herself for even making the effort.

When Joshua rejoined her in the living room, she pointed him toward the futon, currently folded to look more or less like a couch. He sank onto it with that persistent look of cognitive dissonance on his face. Marla could understand it—Hamil was her consiglieri, lower in the city’s hierarchy than herself, and his apartments were modern and comfortable. Marla resisted the urge to spout some justification about the state of her living space, something about the magical potential of relative squalor, but the truth was she just couldn’t be bothered to work on the place. It wasn’t like she spent much time at home, and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d actually entertained a guest.

“Want a drink?” she asked instead, trying to wrest control of the situation back; letting Joshua take charge would be too much like letting water run downhill, so easy and obvious it felt like a law of nature. She crossed to her liquor cabinet—really just an old desk she’d liberated from a street corner. Marla very seldom drank, but she kept a few things on hand for when Hamil or Rondeau came over.

“Brandy?”

“Yeah, I think Hamil finally broke down and brought a bottle to keep here.”

Joshua stretched out his arms along the back of the futon, which suited him like a throne. Marla took a pair of slightly dusty shot glasses from a drawer, wiped them clean, and tipped out a measure of brandy. “No snifters. Around here, you have to improvise.” She handed him a drink.

“I’m good at improvisation. Cheers.” Joshua raised his glass.

Marla clinked hers against his and tossed her drink back, which wasn’t the right way to drink brandy, but whatever. It hit her stomach fast and fiery, and, if only psychologically, helped her relax a bit. She thought about Joshua, how pretty he was, how unknown, how brave he’d been when they fell down the rabbit hole into Genevieve’s world. Before that, he’d been merely tasty. Now, after seeing him deal with a crisis, she was beginning to think of him as a
prospect
. Marla had not hoped for love since she was a teenager. Romance was for other people. She believed romance was
real,
but that she was no more likely to succumb to it than she was to develop male pattern baldness or die from spontaneous human combustion. Now, with Joshua, she dared to hope, and even though she
knew
he had magics to win her heart and mind, she couldn’t help hoping there was something genuine underneath, a core of true connection. Maybe she was fooling herself. But then, he did choose to be with her tonight, when he could have had anyone. So screw it. Even if there was nothing more to this than a romp, didn’t she deserve a romp?