Jennifer Morgue (16 page)
Authors: Charles Stross
"Perhaps later." His smile turns almost sincere for a split second as he turns aside: "Now, if you'll excuse me"
I find myself staring at his retreating back. Seconds later Ramona takes hold of my elbow and twists it, gently steering me through the crowd towards the open glass doors leading onto the balcony at the back of the casino floor. "Come on"
she says quietly. The courtiers have formed an attentive wall around the fourth Mrs. Billington, who is getting ready to recycle some of her husband's money through his bank. I let Ramona lead me outside.
"You know her!" I accuse.
"Of course I damn well know her!" Ramona leans against the stone railing that overhangs the beach, staring at me from arm's length. My heart's pounding and I feel dizzy with relief over having escaped Billington's scrutiny. He was perfectly polite but when he looked at me I felt like a bug on a microscope slide, pinned down by brilliant searchlights for scrutiny by a vast, unsympathetic intellect: trapped with nowhere to hide. "My department spent sixty thousand bucks setting up the first introduction at a congressman's fund-raiser two weeks ago, just so she'd recognize me tonight. You didn't think we'd come here without doing the groundwork first"
"Nobody tells me these things," I complain. "I'm flailing around in the dark!"
"Don't sweat it." Suddenly she goes all apologetic on me, as if I'm a puppy who doesn't know any better than to widdle on the living room carpet: "It's all part of the process."
"What process?" I stare her in the eyes, trying to ignore the effects of the glamour that tells me she's the most amazingly beautiful woman I've ever met.
"The process that I'm not allowed to tell you about." Is that genuine regret in her eyes? "I'm sorry." She lowers her eyelashes. I track down instinctively, and find myself staring into the depths of her cleavage.
"Great," I say bitterly. "I've got a station chief who's as mad as a fish, an incomplete briefing, and a gamblingobsessed billionaire to out-bluff. And you can't fucking tell me what I'm supposed to be doing"
"No," she says, in a thin, hopeless tone. And to my complete surprise she leans forwards, wraps her arms around me, props her chin on my shoulder, and begins to weep silently.
This is the final straw. I have been clawed at by zombies condescended to by Brains, shipped off to the Caribbean and lectured in my sleep by Angleton, introduced to an executive with the eyes of a poisonous reptile, and ranted at by an oldschool spook who's fallen in the bottle — but those are all part of the job. This isn't. There's no briefing sheet on what to do when a supernatural soul-sucking horror disguised as a beautiful woman starts crying on your shoulder. Ramona sobs silently while I stand there, paralyzed by indecision, selfdoubt, and jet lag. Finally I do the only thing I can think of and wrap my arms round her shoulders. "There, there," I mutter, utterly unsure what I'm saying: "It's going to be all right. Whatever it is."
"No, it isn't," she sniffles quietly. "It's never going to be all right." Then she straightens up. "I need to blow my nose."
I can take a hint: I let go and take a step back. "Do you want to talk"
She pulls a hand-sized pack of tissues out of her bag and dabs at her eyes carefully.
"Do I want to talk?" She sniffs, then chuckles. Evidently something I said amused her. "No, Bob, I don't want to talk." She blows her nose. "You're far too nice for this. Go to bed."
"Too nice for what?" These dark hints of hers are getting really annoying, but I'm upset and concerned now that she's pulling herself together; I feel like I've just sat some kind of exam and failed it, without even knowing what subject I'm being tested on.
"Go to bed," she repeats, a trifle more forcefully. "I haven't eaten yet. Don't tempt me."
I beat a hasty retreat back through the casino. On my way out, I go through the side room where they keep the slot machines. I pass Pinky — at least, I'm half-sure it's Pinky — creating a near riot among the blue-rinse set by playing an entire row of one-armed bandits in sequence and winning big on each one. I don't think he notices me. Just as well: I'm not in the mood for small talk right now.
Damn it, I know it's just the effects of a class three glamour, but I can't stop thinking about Ramona — and Mo's flying in tomorrow.
6: CHARLIE VICTOR
I MAKE IT BACK TO MY HOTEL ROOM WITHOUT BETTING lost, falling asleep on my feet, or accidentally looking at the screen saver. I slump in the chair for a while, but there's nothing on TV except an adventure movie starring George Lazenby, and it'll take more than that to keep me awake. So I hang out the DO NOT DISTURB sign, undress, and go to bed.
I fall asleep almost instantly, but it's not very restful because I'm in someone else's head, and I really don't want to be there. Last time this happened, the fifty-something engineering salesman from Dusseldorf trapping off with the blonde call girl was just sad, and a bit pathetic on the side; this time it feels dirty. I (no, he: I struggle to hold myself aside from his sense of self) work out daily in a gym round the corner from the casino before I go in to work, and it's not just pumping iron and running on a track — there's stuff I don't recognize, practice routines with odd twisting and punching and kicking motions, somatic memories of beating people up and the warm sensual excitement that floods me when I stomp some fucking idiot for getting in my face. I've had a call from the customer, and I'm about ready to go off work and go looking for the merchandise he wants, when this blonde American princess comes out of the salle and what do you know, but she's giving me a come-on? She's lost the rich nerd she showed up with, and good riddance; guess I'll have to take her home and that means ... yeah, she'll do. Two birds, one stone, so to speak. Or two stones, in my case. Mind you, she's a customer — I'll just have to be discreet. So I smile at her and make nicey-nice while she giggles, then I offer to buy her a drink and she says, "Yes," and I tell her to meet me over the road at the Sunset Beach Bar so I can show her the town. She heads off, shaking her booty, and I go and get squared away.
Time to do another line of Charlie in the John.
Checking out, walking over the road I get that thrill of arousal. I'm on top of the world again with cold fire coursing through my veins, like the time in the village near Bujumbura when Jacques and I caught that kid stealing and we — the memory skids away from me as if it's made of grease, only an echo of the blood and shit-smell of it and the screams lingering in my ears — and I get the hot tension again, like lightning seeking a path to earth. Sex, that'll help.
Long as she doesn't make a fuss.
She's waiting for me on a bar stool, legs crossed and face hopeful. Plump cheeks, lips like throttled ... I let my face smile at her and order her a drink and make chitchat. She smiles sympathetically and asks me questions trying to find out if I have — hey! She's worried I might have a regular girlfriend, the stupid cunt, so I explain that no my Elouise died in a car crash two years ago and I have been mourning since.
She's so stupid she laps it up, asks me lots of questions and sounds concerned. I figure I'll drop her off with the rich guy's pilot at Anse Marcel tomorrow: but first we'll have some fun together. I act coy but let her draw me out because half the bitches want to be fucked hard by a stranger, they just have to convince themselves he's sensitive and caring at first to get over their inhibitions. After a while she looks at me slack-mouthed like she's already dripping, and I figure it's time. So I ask if she wants to come back to my place and she accepts.
We walk — it's only three blocks — and she doesn't bat an eyelid at the rubbish and the locked shutters. I show her upstairs and unlock the door, and when I turn back to pull her inside she actually gropes me! Normally they get cold at this point and start making excuses but this is going really smooth. I'm hard, of course, and when she kisses me I get an arm round her and start hiking up her skirt. The Rohypnol's in the fridge and it'd be more sensible to slip it to her first, then add a geas on top for safety's sake, but what the hell, she seems willing enough. This one really does seem to want a rough fuck — shame for her she doesn't know about the customer but those are the breaks. I pick her up and carry her inside, kick the door shut, then dump her on the bed and jump her. And the funny thing is she lets me, she doesn't fight, and my heart is in my mouth pounding away between her legs, wet meat, warm meat, it's like she doesn't even know the father says it's wrong to do this beat my meat it's not ever this easy and I can't let her talk afterwards even though she's biting my shoulder and sucking me, and oh father my chest hurts — I open my eyes and stare at the hotel ceiling until my pulse begins to slow. I'm engorged and erect and freezing cold on the damp sheets, and I feel as if I'm about to throw up. "Ramona!" I croak, my larynx still half-paralyzed with sleep.
''The fucker just flatlined on me!'' I can't feel his mind anymore, but he's lying on top of her, still twitching spastically, and I can taste her desperation and fear. ''He must have had a dodgy heart, done one line too many. Finish me off, Bob!''
''What — '' I realize I've been holding my penis and yank my hands away as if they're covered in chili oil.
''Finish me off! Please!'' I can sense her succubus now, coiling like a black vortex of emptiness behind her conscious thoughts. There's nothing human about it, nothing warm — it's like death itself, not the small oblivion of orgasm but its complete antithesis, freezing and vacant, a hunger for life. It needs filling, it's searching for a sacrifice and she'd set her eyes on Marc but he checked out early and now — ''It needs a little death to go with the big one, and the longer you wait the hungrier it gets.'' She sounds breathless. ''If you don't give it one it'll eat me, and you may think that would be a good thing but in case it's escaped your attention we're entangled — ''
''But I — '' I want Mo, don't I? Don't I? Mo isn't hiding behind a glamour. Mo doesn't eat people like a fuck-vampire.
Mo isn't a drop-dead gorgeous blonde, she's just Mo, and we're probably going to end up getting married sooner or later, and I feel guilty and frightened because Mo won't understand what Ramona wants me to do.
''But nothing!'' I can sense Ramona's arousal and, behind it, a canker of upwelling fear. ''Jesus, Bob, do something, please help me here ...!'' She's helpless and small before the emptiness of her hunger, and Mo isn't here, and neither is she. I feel the empty hunger, and I try to wall it out, but Ramona needs me. She's teetering on the edge of an orgasm, the hunger is waiting for her, and if she meets it alone she won't come out the other side alive. I can't not do it.
Can I?
''I'm not cleared for sex magick,'' I tell her, gritting my teeth. But she sends me a touch-sense picture of herself: the warm weight on her chest, Marc's head lolling, the turgid stretch of her vulva occupied by a dead man's dick, a delicious sense of proximity to catastrophic nothingness, teetering on the edge of a cliff — and I clutch myself and begin to spasm wildly because I'm still massively turned on from the overspill of her sex. The sense of doom recedes immediately, and then something I wasn't expecting happens — Ramona comes, taking me completely by surprise.
She goes on and on and on until I'm almost ready to scream for mercy. Finally the waves of sensation finally begin to slow down and recede, leaving her panting and pinned beneath Marc's cooling cadaver. A warm afterglow floods her with life. I can feel her reveling in it.
''Thank you,'' she says fervently, and I can't tell at first whether she's talking to me or to the dead
serial rapist. ''If you hadn't joined in, it would have had me for sure.'' The corpse's head lolls on her shoulder, a drop of spittle dangling from his mouth. She reaches up and shoves it aside. ''Was it good for you, too?'' she asks, and tenderly kisses his soft, unresponsive lips.
My skin crawls. ''You enjoyed that a whole lot,'' I tell her before I bite my tongue. But it's too late.
''You enjoy eating, too, but pleasure's not the only reason you do it,'' she snaps. ''And don't tell me you didn't enjoy this.'' I cringe at her anger: What will Mo say when she finds out? It's not sex — no, it's just having a simultaneous orgasm with a consenting adult, my conscience jabs me. Oh hell, what a mess. I gingerly sit up and shuffle towards the bathroom and a late-night appointment with the shower.
''Hey, what about me?'' Ramona complains bitterly, bracing herself to dislodge the drained husk of her prey.
''I don't want to taik about it right now,'' I mutter. I twist the shower dial, feeling dirty.
''Typical fucking male ...''
''Look who's talking! You're a real piece of work.'' I turn the temperature right up until it hurts, then bite my tongue and stand underneath it. ''You wanted to get into my pants, didn't you?''
''Anyone ever tell you you're an asshole, monkey-boy? If I wanted you I'd have had you right there on the casino balcony, instead of nearly dying in a shit-hole.'' She's working on getting her clothes back into a semblance of order. Marc lies on the floor beside the bed. She lashes out and kicks him hard enough to hurt my toes and I suddenly realize she's shaking with adrenalin, the aftermath of a terror trip.
''Bastard!'' She's really scared. That's my conscience talking; he's been beating on the door for the past couple of minutes but I've only just heard him over the racket in my head. Why wouldn't she be telling the truth? I swallow, forcing back stomach acid. She likes me. Fuck knows why.
I force myself to come up with an apology. ''Being scared makes me more of an asshole than usual.'' It sounds weak in the silence afterwards, but I don't know what else to say.
''You bet,'' she says tightly. ''Go back to bed, Bob. I won't bother you again tonight. Sweet dreams.'' I wake up with the early morning light from the window as it streams in across my face. One of my arms is lying over the edge of the bed, and the other is twisted around someone's shoulders — What the fuck? I think fuzzily.
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