Out of the Box 7 - Sea Change (10 page)

“These things happen,” he said, surprisingly casual about it. That made him smart in my book; other people come at me like they have some sort of grievance, but getting huffy with one of the most powerful people in the world doesn’t usually end well. Don’t depend on my restraint to keep you from being turned into slurry.

Because I don’t have much restraint, duh. Like I told the president, I’m working on it.

“Did you hit up the food?” he asked, seemingly cool about the whole me knocking him around thing.

“Uh, I saw it,” I said, wondering why he was still talking to me. Not that I was complaining, it was just … weird. “Artisanal bread, artisanal cheeses … figured I’d skip it so as to avoid having an artisanal bowel movement later.” Did I just say that?

He laughed, surprising me again. “Nice one.”

“I excel at jokes that end up in the gutter,” I said a little feebly.

“I could stand to hear a little more about those,” he said with a conspiratorial wink that probably sent my eyebrows up into my wildly mussed hair. Why couldn’t I have met this eligible Hollywood bachelor like six hours ago, when I was dressed for my date with Dick? I looked nice then, and I hadn’t flown thousands of miles yet. I was suddenly self-conscious about my appearance, which, I noted finally, was not so impressive compared to all the other women at this party. Also, I suspected my anti-perspirant had failed over Madison. I sniffed. Yep, that was the wafting scent of failure.

There was a sound of raised voices from the front of the house that caused me to turn. “What was that?” I murmured, almost to myself.

“Holy shit!” some guy said as he came around the corner, reminding me of a teenager in a bad high school movie. “The president just told some dude off and then got into his limo and vamoosed.”

“Who says ‘vamoosed’?” I asked in a low voice.

“Canadians?” Steven offered helpfully, causing me to turn back around to see him wearing a tight smile. “Because it has ‘moose’ in it.”

“Yeah, I got that,” I said with a tight smile of my own. “We have a few of those in Minnesota, too.”

“Nice,” he said. “I’m from Alaska, and we have … a lot more than a few.”

“So you’re intimately familiar with moose … es? Meese?” I asked, searching for the plural.

“Yeah, I lost my virginity to one,” he said, utterly deadpan. “That was a rough weekend. He never even called me again, the bastard.”

Okay, that I laughed at, then surveyed the kitchen and the people stationed around it with a glance. They were all staring at us, talking in hushed voices, casting looks of their own in our direction. I didn’t think it was just my hair that they were marveling at, either, and it kind of ruined the joke for me. “Well, it was nice to meet you, uh, Mr.—”

“Wow, you called me Mister,” he said, his face falling. “Makes me feel really old.”

“Yeah, you’re definitely getting up there in the years,” I shot back. “What are you, like twenty-five?”

“Closer to thirty, but don’t tell anyone,” he said with a wink that made me moist.

In the armpits, you perverts. Because of failing anti-perspirant. Yeah. It had nothing to do with a big movie star winking at me. Nooooooo. “Yeah, you’re like the oldest person I’ve ever met,” I said. “Except for all those old gods that had lived for thousands of years.”

Now it was his turn to raise eyebrows. “You met … like … gods? Like the real ones? Like Hephaestus and Apollo—?”

“Don’t mix and match the Greek and the Roman deities,” I said. “Yes on Hephaestus.” I’d actually pummeled the hell out of him about five minutes before he died. “Apollo died before B.C. turned to A.D., I think, though I knew his son pretty well.” So did Kat, for that matter, since she’d been intimate—not like Moose-joke intimate, but actually intimate—with Janus.

“Wow, that’s—” Steven stopped short, straightening as someone approached behind me. “Hello, sir.”

Sir? I wondered, turning to find—ugh, Taggert. Again.

“You don’t have to call me sir,” Taggert said with that same easy, sleazy smile, but something in his manner suggested that maybe he reveled in being called sir. More than a little, even. “How’s it going, Steven? I hear you’ve got some script problems on your new project.”

“It’s in rewrites,” Clayton admitted a little stiffly. “You know me, I stay out of all that.” He smiled faintly. “They just pay me to read it and come up with the requisite emotion to go along.”

“Oh, come on now,” Taggert said, steering carefully around me to land a hand on Steven’s shoulder. “They pay you for more than that—your pretty face and your manly manner, for example.” Taggert clenched a fist and made a stiff grimace. “You’re one of the only real rugged guys in this generation, you know. We’re having to import that kind of talent from England and Australia nowadays by the bucketload.”

I thought about that for a second. Hemsworth, Hiddleston, Cumberbatch—hey, maybe he was right. At least we still had Chris Evans and Chris Pratt. Wait, how many Chris’s did this town have, anyway?

“Well, thank you, sir,” Clayton said, all mannerly and gentlemanly and—uh, yeah, manly, too. He reminded me of one of those old-timey cowboys from the westerns, like a better-looking John Wayne with his chivalry and manners and stuff.

“That project,” Taggert said, acting like he was thinking it over, trying to recall, but proving that he wasn’t going to be winning any awards for his performance, “it’s like
Die Hard
in a National Park, right? You’re the ranger from Yogi Berra?”

“Uh, Yogi Berra was a baseball great,” Clayton said with a disarming smile, “but yeah, my character is a park ranger. He’s an outdoorsman, and—”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it,” Taggert said, making a frame out of his hands and putting Clayton in the middle of it. “All-American guy and whatnot. Sounds like a real stretch for you, really pushing your craft.” He grinned, and I beat back my desire to practice amateur dentistry again.

Another round of screams came from behind Steven, out the glass doors on the deck, somewhere below where I saw a pool glimmering. “What’s that?” Taggert asked as we all turned. “You think the president snuck back in just to tell someone else off?”

“Well, he’s not doing it to me, so I’m guessing not,” I said, feeling slightly annoyed. Steven gave me a puzzled look. Another scream sounded in the silence, more urgently this time, and desperately familiar—

Klementina
.

“Kitten,” Taggart whispered, but I was already flying into motion.

Kat certainly didn’t intend to scream, but it came stumbling out from between her lips anyway, after the others had gone through a round of it. Seeing a man walk through a wall tended to do that, ghostly and incorporeal, like he was smoke passing through solid surfaces.

“Kat Forrest,” the red-haired demon of a man said in a harsh, grating voice. His beard and hair were so tangled, so … gross. “I told you I was coming for you.”

That wasn’t what had prompted the scream, though; no, it was him sticking his hand right through Bree Lancer’s chest, then pulling it out, taking what looked like her heart with it—that was what caused the scream from Kat.

Others followed, of course, and then the inevitable flight from the scene, with more screams, more cries, more gasps, shouts of “OHMIGOD!” and the like. Kat didn’t move, standing still and staring right into the eyes of the red menace as Bree Lancer’s corpse splashed into the pool and sank. The red-haired man stood there, hand extended over the water, and let the drops of crimson fall, disappearing into the churning water.

“What the hell, bro!” someone called as they were running away. Kat kept her eyes riveted on the redhead, watching him for movement, but he seemed more interested in dangling the heart over the pool, letting the blood drip out of it.

“I don’t know you,” Kat said quietly, keeping herself still.

“You will,” the redhead said. “By the end of this, you’ll know who I am.” He smiled and his teeth looked dark and stained. “The world will never forget my name … and the only thing they’ll remember yours for is how you died.”

“That’s grim,” Sienna said as she shot over the balcony above and rocketed down at the redhead. He looked up at her in dull surprise as she led with a foot in a kick that brought her streaking, unerringly, toward him—

Only to pass through as she rocketed toward the concrete pool deck.

Sienna stopped only an inch before her foot slammed into the concrete, her body mingled with the redhead’s, his face sticking out of hers, her legs and lower body jutting out of his waist. She spun and disentangled from him in an instant, causing him to take a disoriented step back. “Well, that was a dipsy-doodle,” she said, blinking as she stood in front of Kat.

“A what?” Kat asked.

“Not the moment for explanation,” Sienna said, holding up a hand protectively to ward Kat back. That was Sienna, all charging in like the big hero, regardless of whether it did any good or not. “So … mysterious phasing guy … I hear you’ve got grievances against Kat here.”

“Not as big as the grievance I’ve got against you,” the redhead snapped, tossing aside Bree Lancer’s heart like it was a bad pita chip.

“Have we met?” Sienna asked, voice riddled with confusion. “Because I don’t recall running up against a guy who could move through walls and people—” She paused. “Waiiiiiit a minute. Didn’t Augustus kick your ass after you—”

“Shut up!” The redhead hissed, taking a stomping step forward.

“—put a hand through Taneshia?” Sienna finished, and Kat could hear the smirk in her delivery. “He buried you, didn’t he?”

“SHUT UP!” the redhead screamed and stepped forward again, his pale, freckled face flushed.

“Dude,” Sienna said, looking him up and down, “What happened to you? You are looking emaciated as—”

The redhead lunged at her, bloodied hands reaching for her neck. Sienna shot backward; he moved fast. She collided with Kat, knocking her into the pool like she’d just been sidelined by a truck coming at her in reverse.

“Ooof—” Kat grunted as she hit the surface of the water with a splash.

The water was warm, at least, but disorientation overcame her as she spun, nearly weightless, headfirst in the pool. The lights in the water gave the whole world a green coloring, with hints of blue, like lush plants were surrounding her instead of water.

Kat spun, her dress clinging to her and yet still swirling behind her in a trail. Now she regretted going with the slightly longer hem, but at least it hadn’t been one of those award-season dresses with a full train. She looked up and could see the dark sky above, the hints of trees that surrounded the yard, and some sort of battle taking place—

She was rocketed out of the water like it had spit her out. It was like stone hitting her buttocks and launching her free from the pool’s embrace, carrying her out and onto the deck on the upper floor. She rode the pillar of water up, sputtering as it cleared out of her eyes, where the chlorine had already started to burn a little, and delivered her right into the waiting arms of—

Scott.

He had his hands out to steer the water and to catch her, and he did both, sending the water that had carried her up to him back down with a hard push of his hands. It turned like a living thing, tendrils of moisture that made a U-turn and went right for the man with the red hair as he struck out at Sienna, who was laughing as she dodged him.

What seemed like the entire pool dumped down on the redhead, and he disappeared under hundreds of gallons of fresh liquid. Scott’s hands were moist, light glistening off them as he turned the only weapon he had against the enemy in front of him. He clapped his hands together like some kind of signal, and the water just parked itself with the redhead at its center, as though it were trapped by invisible glass walls.

Sienna stood just outside the wall of liquid, hands up in a defensive stance, and cast a short look up at Kat and Scott. “Nicely done.”

“Thanks,” Scott said, straining, his hands shaking, as he kept the water in place.

Kat stood next to him, utterly drenched and dripping on the deck, breathing hard as she stared down. Within the globule of water, which was formless, like a droplet of water so small as to hold its shape without borders, she could see movement—

Red hair making its way unhindered through the heart of the globe of water.

The man with the ragged red hair and beard emerged from Scott’s trap without having to so much as take a breath. He stood there, facing down Sienna once more, looking just as ragged, just as wary, his shoulders slightly slumped.

“I guess you weren’t thirsty,” Sienna said. Kat would have rated that maybe a 3 out of 10 on Sienna’s repartee scale; it wasn’t her best work.

“I’m thirsty for vengeance,” the redhead said and came at Sienna once more—no warning, no hesitation—and, Kat suspected—no mercy.

Every so often I run into someone and I’m just not sure what to do with them. You probably know what I mean—ever come across someone you knew way back when and you’re like, “Oh, hey, it’s you!” because you don’t remember their name?

This was like that, except that I not only didn’t know this guy’s name, I also didn’t know how to kill him. The redhead was leering at me from beneath that enormously scraggly beard and long hair, reminding me of nothing so much as one of Wolfe’s brothers—

True
, Wolfe offered.

—ready to take another swipe at me. Only a complete and total moron wouldn’t have seen it coming a mile off, which was why, when he came for me, I was ready to evade.

But as I fell back from his ineffectual, rage-driven swipes, I ran through my mental list of things I could do to him and scratched items off the list one by one:

Beat him into a messy pulp—Sienna. NOPE.

Turn into a dragon and bite his head off—Bastian. Not so much. Also,
NO,
said Bastian, embarrassed.

Capture him in a web of light—Eve Kappler. I shot a web at him and it passed through like he wasn’t there. Well, that was a negatory.

Burn him to death—Gavrikov. I held up both hands and blasted with a jet of flame that I immediately recalled back to my hands, creating a coruscating field of heat just in front of me. It passed through his face and chest like he wasn’t even there. Which he probably wasn’t. VETO.