Mr. Real (Code of Shadows #1) (17 page)

He thought about this.
Use your opponent’s energy against him,
Master Veecha had always said. He could select something impossible, and when it didn’t show up, maybe she’d cooperate.

Or make excuses.

“Please.”

He could feel himself crumbling. She seemed so unhappy, so conflicted, so desperate, and covering it with bravado, just as she’d done in that martial arts class four years ago.

He held all the cards, but he found he wanted to say yes to her. Ever since kicking her out, he’d yearned for another chance to say yes to her.

It was
her
. Alix.

He sighed.
Fine
, he would make this good faith gesture. He would give her this. And they’d spend this time together—there was that, too. Somehow he would get to the bottom of all this and find a way to help her. “Twenty-four hours. You promise you’ll help after that. No excuses. No do-overs,” he said.

“Same for you. No do-overs. When you get your thing, you leave us in peace.”

“Deal.” He held out his hand. She took it. He tightened his fingers around hers, suddenly, acutely aware of the fact that the lunatic who had his face had been fucking her. It made him crazy to think it.

“When you see that it’s true, you can’t tell anybody,” she said.

“Mum’s the word. If I see it’s true.”

“Promise? You cannot breathe a word, including to Sir Kendall. He doesn’t know he’s not real.”

“Promise.”

A tiny smile crept onto her face. “Paul, you are going to
freak
.” She said the word a full octave higher than the rest of the sentence.
Freak
. It was so her to say it like that. He’d interacted with her for such a short time all those four years ago, but certain things had become very
her
for him.

She turned and led him back into the house and through the kitchen. He took the opportunity to pull the clip out of the gun and pocket it. Then he checked the chamber. Empty. He hated loaded guns. He shoved it back into his waistband just as they walked by the entry to the living room. The man was still there, sitting against the radiator, smiling like a Cheshire cat as they passed.

Paul stayed cool and followed her down a short hall into a colorful office lined with bright posters and bookshelves that held a messy profusion of old toys, quirky figurines, and trashed paperbacks. Total Alix style, he thought.

Rambo 2000.
He smiled in spite of himself.

He’d found her again. What the hell had happened to her?

“Come on, Lindy.” The dog came in and Alix closed the door, pulled an extra chair to the desk, and sat down. “What’ll it be, el cap-ee-tan?”

He took the chair next to her and watched her wake the machine. He had the exact same system, except she kept hers messy with icons strewn everywhere. Her short hair was messy, too, falling in pieces, instead of a smooth fluff like other girls. And pink now. Spicy and carefree, just like her. It was nice to sit with her. He wished she wasn’t crazy or messing with him or whatever was happening. She really didn’t seem crazy, but who would make up such a story?

“Whatever you get, you need to be able to take it when you go,” she added. “I don’t want the Empire State Building in my front yard, if you know what I mean.” She created a clipboard. Lindy came around and rested her chin on her thigh and Alix scratched the dog’s ears.

He smiled. “So you want me to believe that you sat down here, suspecting you might be able to choose anything in the world, and have it appear before your very eyes, and you chose Sir Kendall Nicholas the Third.”

“That’s right,” she said, staring fixedly at the screen.

He stifled a smile. “
Interesting
.”

Her cheeks went nearly as red as her top. “Shut up.”

He grinned. “No, seriously—you’re telling me you ordered a man? Like takeout? A man who looks like me?”

She swallowed. “It was a test.”

He paused, enjoying her embarrassment. He shouldn’t be having fun, but he was. Everything about her was fun. “I don’t know what’s crazier—that you’re asking me to believe that your computer has this special power, or that, assuming it does and you could’ve chosen anything or anybody in the world, that you’d go for a fake spy character from an obscure TV ad instead of, say, George Washington, or somebody worthwhile.”

“Oh yeah, George Washington. That would be awesome. We could play whist.”

“It’s okay, you don’t have to explain. I get it. A man-sized sex toy—” Again she reddened. It was too fun to tease her. “In the image of
me
. I suppose that’s understandable—”

“I didn’t order
you
,” she snapped. “I ordered Sir Kendall.”

“Fine. Well guess what? I’ve decided what I want.”

“What?”

“I’m going to find a hot sex slave to satisfy
my
endless, kinky desires. I’m going to do exactly what you did and find a photo of the hottest person I can possibly imagine…”

“Shut up. And, it’s not funny. No people.” She gave him a level stare, and he realized, right there, that she fully believed in this computer. “Things or animals only. But if it’s an animal, be ready to care for it. When you get an animal, it’s your responsibility for the rest of its life.”

“But it
can
do people.”

“Come on, Paul, don’t you have enough imagination to come up with a non-human, impossible thing?” She waited, petting Lindy. The cursor pulsed in the blank Google-search rectangle.

He considered getting something that had to be imported from Asia, at least a twenty-hour plane ride away, but anything could be fabricated.

“You can get more than one thing. When Sir Kendall showed up on Friday night, he had his car,” she said. “I didn’t mean for him to come with a car, but I guess it was in the background of the photo. I’ve gotten entire outfits with accessories.”

“Lucky this powerful magic didn’t fall into the hands of somebody who would use it merely for her own self-gratification.”

She turned to him, eyes flashing. Had he hit a nerve? “There are people out there who would order guns and bombs,” she said.

“True enough.” He crossed his arms, sat back, and stretched out his legs. What would be impossible to fabricate? “What if I ordered something from my youth? Say, a piece of sports equipment. Would I get a new version of that thing, or that exact thing from the past, flaws and all?”

“As far as I can tell, the flaws and whatever else come with it.” She told him about some barrel she’d gotten, how the dings and dents looked the same.

He told her to type in the Web address for Master Veecha’s school up in Oakland. Some of the old students had taken it over. A good group, and they had an image-rich site. He had her click through the photos. “I’m going for training equipment,” he said. “Not just any equipment. I know every nick and scratch on some of this stuff.”

“So you’re really a fighter on TV now?”

He shifted, avoiding her eyes.
Was
, he should probably say. But instead he grunted. “Mixed martial arts. The UFL.” God, was he trying to impress her now?

“I’ve heard of that.” She clicked through the slideshow of the school. “A fighter and an actor.”

“I’m done acting. The acting was supposed to serve the fighting.” Paul’s breath caught as she hit a photo of Master Veecha in his prime. He would’ve been thirty-one. Just two years older than Paul was now.

“Who is that?” she asked.

“My old teacher,” Paul said, “back when he was young.” The next group of photos showed Veecha in his seventies, hair white as snow. “This was how he looked when I knew him. He died a few years back.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me too,” he said softly.

“And I want to say something, Paul.” She paused, as though it was something difficult. “I’m sorry I ordered Sir Kendall. It was thoughtless and selfish. Not just toward Sir Kendall, but toward you, too. Don’t think I don’t know it.”

“Hey, you didn’t do anything wrong,” he said. “We’re going to take care of this.”

Her lips twisted slightly, and she looked away, dismayed. She’d heard the placating tone in his words and knew he thought the computer was bunk. Well, what did she expect?

He pointed at the screen. “Click here.”

She clicked and the building came up. “The martial arts school where you taught,” she said.

“Where you spent all those long hours working so diligently.”

She made a sarcastic little huff, and clicked along to the training rooms.

“Stop—go back,” he said. “There. See that heavy bag? You’re telling me I’d get that exact one?”

“An exact duplicate. The original bag would remain at the school. But this online image of it would be knocked out, and any copies of that image. As far as I can tell.”

He squinted. “Really? Knocked out? Why?”

“Don’t ask me. That’s how it works.”

“Fine. I’ll take the heavy bag.”

Would she really help him when the stuff didn’t arrive? Well, he’d have twenty-four hours to gain her trust in the meantime.

She copied and saved the image.

“Wait, can you select that old bench back there?”

“Sure.” She went to work.

He was maybe fourteen when he’d scratched something on the bottom of it: Kill G+G. His vow to kill Gene and Gary someday. But then he’d scratched it out, because Master Veecha was against killing. But if you stretched out underneath the bench and studied it, you could still see the vow—if you knew what you were looking for.

“You do have a way to haul it, right?” She leaned over in her chair, shifted the orange curtains, and peered outside. “A little Honda. Ho-kay.” She turned back to him. “How exactly are you going to fit a giant heavy bag and a bench in there?”

“Um–”

“You need to take this seriously, Paul.” She typed in the words ‘monster truck.’ They ended up at a page about some expo. “Let’s see…” She zigged the cursor back and forth in front of a huge black truck with oversized tires and neon blue fire down the sides. “What do you think? Seems perfect for you.”

“How ‘bout that one—” He pointed to an even larger and more outrageous truck, with gargantuan wheels and monster faces on the sides. Best of all, it was a computer illustration—not a photo. “Can I have one like this?”

She narrowed her eyes. “I’ve never gotten something from an illustration…I won’t make any guarantees, but I’ll bet it works.” She copied, cropped, and pasted. “And just because you’re going to be like, ‘why the hell didn’t I order money?’ when the stuff shows up…” She located an image of money—bundles of fifties, neatly stacked in a block, and then a six-pack of Rolling Rock. “Because you’re going to need a drink when you see this.”

She forced him to stand at the door while she did her mojo, clicking and fussing. “Done. It’s eleven fifty-three,” she said. “So tomorrow at exactly this time, you need to be out on the porch so you can see the stuff appear. And you will
leave
with the stuff. As promised.”

“
If
it’s the stuff.”

“It’ll be the stuff. I bet you even get the truck. And just to be safe, you should show up back here at eleven, tomorrow morning. That’ll give you plenty of time to get settled. And I need to keep Sir Kendall away from here. I don’t want him knowing about this until he’s ready.”

“You think I’m leaving you alone with that nut job?”

“You can’t stay,” she said.

“Yes, I can. And when the stuff doesn’t show up, we’re moving right to implementing fake Sir Kendall’s care plan.”

“Paul, it’ll be okay. There’s a motel outside of town.”

“Sorry, but I’m staying, and I’m keeping this.” He pulled out the gun. Could he be any more of a jerk? But he’d do what it took. “And psycho stays cuffed to the radiator.”

Her mouth fell open. “The hell he does.”

“He gave up his privileges when he attacked you. He will remain cuffed to the radiator, if you don’t want the cops descending on the place.”

A new look now: a beam of pure outrage, bright as her hair. He’d never met a woman with such a rich vocabulary of angry expressions. All aimed at him.

Fine. He’d take it. He’d take it all. This was what he had in front of him now, a girl he’d once cared a great deal about in some sort of trouble. He’d find a way to help her.

And she’d hate every second of it.

“I can’t believe this.” She rose and stormed out of the office.

He shoved the gun back in his belt, and only then and there did it strike him how very odd it was that the man pulled off the Master Veecha move—the slip. You didn’t pick that up casually. And then he thought about something she’d said—that Sir Kendall had shown up Friday night. Which would mean she’d ordered him Thursday night…the night Paul had gotten his urge to visit Malcolmsberg.

He felt a bit of a chill.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Alix sat on cushions on the floor next to Sir Kendall, eyeing Paul, who sat across the room on the couch, watching football and texting with some friend of his.

Hardass Paul.

He was still so handsome, so confident, and he still stirred her to attention as no man ever had—God, how she despised herself for that! And she despised herself for craving his good opinion, too. And, of course, at the moment, he was being a complete asshole.

Paul expected Sir Kendall to stay locked up for the next twenty-four hours.
He gave up his privileges when he attacked you,
Paul informed her. Like this was his home, and she was his ward, who couldn’t stand up for herself.

She’d arranged a little nest of blankets and cushions in front of the radiator for Sir Kendall, trying to make him as comfortable as possible. When she’d pointed out that Sir Kendall would have no way to pee, Paul had offered a Snapple bottle. A Snapple bottle!

She’d once enjoyed his whole bossy, commandeering act. Well, she wasn’t enjoying it now.

Sir Kendall had only smiled his sly little smile when Paul had set down the rules, as if Paul was just so—what had he called him?—boorish. Yes, Paul was being boorish.

“You don’t have to sit there with him,” Paul had said to her. Meaning she should sit on the couch with him.