Anton Strout - Deader Still

She laughed.

“Well, that is something, isn’t it?”

I liked seeing her smile.

“So,” I said. “Any new developments with the technomancy? Have you figured out how, exactly, you saved me from those rats?”

I shivered at the thought of the Oubliette and whoever had sabotaged it against me.

“Actually, I’m trying to cut back on using it,” she said, “for now.”

“Why?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I just feel a little funny suddenly having all this power at my disposal. Doesn’t feel right.”

“If you say ‘with great power comes great responsibility, ’ I might gag.”

“Well,” she said. “It is true, but that’s not my main reason. I just don’t feel as happy, I guess, when I use it. Of course, Wesker keeps encouraging me to experiment with it.”

“Of course he does,” I said.

Jane cocked her head at me, the blond tip of her ponytail momentarily swinging into view.

“What I mean,” I continued, “is that he’s all about the accumulation of resources, and I’m sure he considers the development of your power as one of the new shinies in his dark little toy box.”

Jane shifted her face into a half smile, half frown.

“You make me feel so owned.”

Now it was my turn to shrug. I didn’t want to say anything too damaging. I wanted her to mull over the possibility that maybe she shouldn’t get so chummy with her potentially evil boss, especially when the two of them spent so much time alone together at Tome, Sweet Tome. I pushed away fantastical images of Jane and Wesker bumping uglies in the Stacks.

Of course, it would only take touching something of Jane’s that had been with her all day to find out the truth, if I really wanted to know. But I resisted. I hadn’t learned to control the very type of incident that had led to every ugly breakup of my adult life only to turn around and use it now simply because it was the easy way. Instead, I dove into my food.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Jane said, her eyes lighting up. She turned to her shoulder bag on the seat beside her. “I brought this for you.” Jane produced a book and put it on the table, sliding it across to me. The Rough Guide to Supernatural New York City . “This is the book you came for, isn’t it?”

“Jane,” I whispered, pulling the book off the table and out of sight in a flash. “I thought the Stacks were a no-lending area?”

“They are,” she said, giving me a devilish grin, “but who says I can’t use my occasional evil tendencies to benefit my man every once in a while?”

It was a tiny bit wicked, but who was I to lecture her on flouting Departmental rules? Besides, I was the one who was about to by involved in an art heist. “Thank you,” I said. “I’m hoping I can figure out just what the hell the significance of Cleopatra’s Needle is, if any, before I meet up with Connor in Central Park at three a.m. I appreciate it, but no more evil on my behalf, okay?”

“Sure thing, cutie,” she said, her grin still in place. I felt her foot start to trace its way up my calf under the table. “Sure I can’t coax you into a little more evil?”

Oh, I could definitely have gone for some of the horizontal evil Jane was hinting at. Then I remembered that Mina was staying at my apartment, and even though she was out making preparations for our heist tomorrow night, she could come back at any time. “Can we make it your place?” I said. Jane’s eyes narrowed.

I slid the book into my own bag.

“I’ve got to meet Connor in a few hours,” I said, skirting the issue of my houseguest, “and Chelsea’s a little closer to Central Park. It’ll give me more time to cuddle . . . ?”

“Cuddle?” she said. “Honey, when I’m done with you, you’ll be lucky if you can even move.”

I’d worry later about the delicious damage Jane might do to me and how I was going to be able to walk to meet Connor afterward. This was certainly a much better distraction than irrational jealousy, psychotic ex-cons, and vampires.

When I met Connor at the base of Cleopatra’s Needle, it was three a.m. and I was too exhausted to even speak. Aside from the mind-blowing sex, my body had already been pushed to its limit today—physically from the chase Connor and I had engaged in with the ghost, and emotionally from trying to deal with both Mina and Jane.

Just being in the silent darkness of the park after hours was clearly freaking Connor out. This was on top of whatever had spooked him in that letter I had seen in my psychometric vision—or rather hadn’t been able to see. There was no way in hell I could ask him about it directly, though, so for now I was happy to meet Connor’s silence with my own. My brain was thinked out.

I took a seat on the steps of the white pedestal supporting Cleopatra’s Needle. I stared up at one of the four bronze crabs standing guard at each corner. Connor paced back and forth. Curiosity eventually got the better of me and I spoke up.

“I don’t get it,” I said. “You think the jogger or maybe the vampires might return to the scene of the crime?”

Connor shook his head. “Not the vamps. Just the jogger hopefully,” he said, and went silent again.

I became bored and stood on the top edge of the white base, reaching up to grasp my gloved hands onto one of the metallic crab claws. I hung my full weight from it, letting my feet dangle, feeling a bit like a prize from one of those arcade claw vending-machine games. The mental image caused me to laugh out loud.

Connor twirled around, full of nerves.

“Jesus, kid,” he said. “How can you laugh at a time like this?”

“It probably helps that I’m dangling from this here crab,” I said, but Connor wouldn’t even smile at that. “My arms are numb, but it’s a nice, cooling sensation.”

“Just keep sharp,” he said, and resumed his pacing. “That’s gotta be nine hundred pounds’ worth of bronze crabs yer dangling from.”

“I’m not sure how important this is,” I said, dropping down, “but it would help if I knew what I was staying sharp for . Or rather, what we plan to do should anything show up here tonight.”

“Huh?” Connor said, looking up from his pacing. “Oh, right. Sorry, kid.”

Connor’s bag sat on one of the benches and he went to it. He pulled two shapes from it, but I could barely make them out in the pervading darkness.

“Are those . . . hair dryers?”

“Close, kid,” he said, “but no cigar.”

Connor stepped closer. In each hand he held identical hair-dryer-shaped devices. Both were bright yellow with red stripes down the sides.

“Bubble blasters?” I asked, and Connor nodded. “I don’t get it.”

“What’s not to get?” he said. “They blast bubbles.”

“Yeah, I gathered that.”

He handed me one. “Go on, give it a try.”

As if things couldn’t get more surreal, I pulled the trigger. Bubbles filled the air—but they weren’t ordinary bubbles. The smell of patchouli rose from the gun. I popped one of the bubbles and it splashed onto my face. “Great,” I said. “I smell like one of the squatters in the East Village now.”

“Look, kid. These vampires, or whatever it is we’re hunting, might not return to the scene of the crime, but the jogger might. A free-floating ghost almost invariably repeats the patterns it formed in life, like jogging this path. It’s just a matter of time.”

I held up my bubble blaster, waving it at Connor. “I thought mentors were supposed to be older and wiser. You’ve got the older part down.”

Connor stared at me. “Just get away from the crab and get on the other side of the path, will you? When we see the guy coming, we get the blasters going and create a wall of this stuff.”