Poison Sleep (32 page)

“It’s a date, boss.”

Langford opened the door and ushered them in. “Ted called and told me you were coming, though he wasn’t certain
why
.” He cleared off a long autopsy table so they could lay Terry Reeves down. “Who’s our friend?”

“This is the man who assaulted Genevieve,” Marla said. “The original flesh-and-blood inspiration for Reave, king of nightmares.”

“Oh,” Langford said, raising his eyebrows, which meant he was very impressed indeed. “That’s clever.”

“I should get to work,” Hamil said, and set about collecting coils of wire, copper nails, vials of salt, and other tools of his trade. He’d seen the possibilities even faster than Marla had, probably. This idiot rapist Terry Reeves and the dark overlord Reave were fundamentally connected on a deep level; they weren’t just similar, they were the
same
. They could make Terry Reeves into a living, life-sized voodoo doll for Reave. Whatever Terry Reeves suffered, Reave would suffer. If Reeves died, there was a chance—not a certainty, but a chance—that Reave would die, too.

But Marla and Hamil had more complicated ideas.

“Will you just be cutting off his head, in hopes that will finish Reave?” Langford said.

“Nope,” Marla said. “I think the only way for Genevieve to really get rid of Reave is to
believe
she can beat him. He’s grown to tremendous proportions in her mind. She needs to realize the
real
Terry Reeves is a sad piece of shit she can squish like a bug, not the monster she’s built him up to be. She needs to see the inside of his head again and realize it’s a squalid, nasty place, not worth her fear. Which means…” She went to the box of Genevieve’s possessions, which Langford had used to track her. There were alligator clips attached to the photograph, the silk scarf, the hairbrush, the book. “We’ve got hair and clothes and beloved items, and that means we can set up a sympathetic resonance between Genevieve and whoever has these possessions. At the same time, we’ll set up a resonance between Reave and Terry Reeves, and make the big bad guy a little bit more mortal and vulnerable.”

Hamil came over and began lifting items from the box. “Marla’s mind will enter Genevieve’s body, and because Genevieve is such a powerful psychic, her consciousness should flow into Marla as well. There should be no danger of rejection. Thanks to the resonance, Genevieve should apprehend Marla’s motives quickly, and though she’s unbalanced, we think—or more truthfully, we hope—she will let us proceed. They’ll essentially switch bodies. Marla will be able to deal with Reave, and Genevieve will be able to confront this man, and, perhaps, gain some closure. Or possibly slit his throat, depending on her temperament.”

Marla took off her cloak. “You better lock this up, though, Langford. When I switch places with Genevieve, she’ll be riding around in my body, and I don’t want her having access to a weapon quite
that
badass. Who knows how she’ll react when she recognizes this guy?”

Marla sat down. Hamil wound Genevieve’s scarf around her throat, and wove strands of hair from the brush in with Marla’s own. He tucked the book and the photograph into her pockets. “What do you think?” Marla said.

“It’s fine,” Hamil said. “I think it’s good enough.” He lit candles and began his incantations, and Marla did her best to meditate and empty her mind.

“I don’t think anything’s happ—” she began, and then, suddenly, something was.

Another bench, in another park, on a summer day. Not the dream world, exactly—the edges of this place blurred, nothing quite solidifying unless Marla looked at it directly. She was in some tiny corner of Genevieve’s mind—or else Genevieve was in a corner of Marla’s mind.

Genevieve sat beside her, twisting a scarf in her hands. “Marla. I can’t keep you straight. Kill, save, help, harm.”

“Definitely help now,” Marla said. “So let me help, would you?”

“He can’t be defeated. I’ve tried. He killed my knight.”

“At the very least, I owe you a break, then. Let me take your place for a while. You can sit out the next round of the torture decathlon, okay?”

Genevieve cocked her head. “And what waits for me if I rest for a while in your body?”

“It’s better if you see that for yourself.” But of course, there was no keeping secrets from Genevieve—even asking the question was just a courtesy on her part, the type of kindness polite psychics learned early on, and it was heartening that Genevieve was still sane enough to bother.

“You have…Reave? The man who attacked me? But he’s here, in this tower—”

“Not exactly.” Marla hesitated. It was hard to diplomatically tell someone they were bat-shit insane, especially when that someone could read your mind. “Reave is a nightmare you had. We’ve got the cause of the nightmare. Terry Reeves. Do you understand?”

Marla’s mind was spread out before Genevieve like a rummage table at a garage sale, but Genevieve seemed to have trouble comprehending. “But he—I don’t—what will he…” She trailed off, her face a twist of anguish.

“Look, you’ll be safe. And I’ll take your pain for a while. Let me do that? To make up for that whole planning-to-kill-you thing?”

Genevieve nodded, and the bench fell away.

Marla found herself in a small cell with black walls, sitting on a chair. She wasn’t bound—why would Reave bind Genevieve, when she was so broken? The body was sore, but not abused. The torments would be mostly psychological, of course. Reave couldn’t risk actually hurting Genevieve. She was his power source. Marla stood, stretched, and tested the body’s capabilities. Genevieve was no martial artist, and she was physically weaker than Marla, but Marla wasn’t expecting to brawl. She had other plans. She’d hoped that taking Genevieve’s body would give her access to the woman’s vast reality-altering powers, but no such luck—maybe she could have used those powers, but she had no idea
how,
anyway, any more than taking over a nuclear physicist’s body would let her know how to build an atom bomb.

Marla could see, as with the vividness of a dream, the world through her own body’s eyes, now inhabited by Genevieve. It was profoundly disorienting, but Marla’s recent experience piloting the chimera helped. Genevieve stood up, and Hamil and Rondeau gave her reassurances, and Marla felt some strain in the back of her head as Genevieve read their minds. Marla’s brain, of course, was no good at reading minds, so Genevieve had to reach back through their psychic link to her
own
brain to do so. Marla was impressed with the woman’s range—Langford’s warehouse was across town, and Genevieve was able to pinpoint particular minds there with great accuracy. Genevieve went to look at Terry Reeves, still unconscious on an autopsy table. “But he’s so old,” Genevieve said, and Marla grinned. That was as good a cue as any. She turned her attention away from Genevieve to the situation at hand.

“HEY!” she shouted, and a faceless guard appeared at the barred grate in the door. “Call your boss, I need to talk to him. Don’t just stand there, shadow-face, get him! Unless he’s afraid to speak to a
woman
.” The guard disappeared, and Marla grinned. The muscles in her face felt strange. Genevieve didn’t smile much.

Marla picked up the waste-bucket and stood by the door. In a moment the door creaked open and Reave entered. He was close to seven feet tall now, his bald head more gleaming than mushroomlike, his stupid shiny coat cinched tight at the waist.

Marla threw the contents of the bucket into his face, and laughed when he stumbled back. One of his guards handed him a handkerchief, and Reave wiped the worst of the smears away. “Have you gone even
more
mad, woman? You will pay for that.”

“Why do you have guards with you, Terry? Too afraid to talk to me one-on-one?”

Reave frowned, then waved his hand, and the guards withdrew, shutting the door after them. “You know how I feel about women who talk back, Genevieve. You know what
happens
to them.”

“Oh?” Marla said, pretending to cringe, then stepping forward and kicking him as hard as she could between his legs. Reave’s eyes widened, but that was all, and Marla grinned. “A real man would have doubled over when I did that, Terry. But you don’t even have balls, do you? You stand there all menacing, but you couldn’t fuck me if I
begged
you, much less against my will. How is it you think you can threaten me when the closest thing you’ve got to a cock is this big stupid tower?”

Reave spat at her feet. “You are not Genevieve. This is Genevieve’s
body,
but…Marla?”

She curtsied. “You’re pretty slow on the uptake for the lord of nightmares, Terry.”

“You think this is clever? You found some hair, some piece of her clothes, and decided to give Genevieve a respite? You think I won’t
hurt
you?”

“Of
course
you won’t, you moron. Genevieve is the source of your power. You won’t touch a hair on her head.”

Reave sniffed. “There are torments that do not result in death, Marla.”

“Yeah, and I’m sure you’re good at inflicting them on a traumatized woman in a state of semicatatonia. But I’m a little more feisty. You don’t like feisty women, do you, Terry?”

“Don’t call me
Terry
!” he roared, and Marla just laughed in his face. She loved this part.

“Oh, that’s right. Terry’s just the true story you were inspired by, right? Oh, and incidentally—we have him. The real original you, asshole.”

“You lie.”

Marla just snorted.

“Even if you do, it doesn’t matter. He is not me. He is only a man. I am the king of nightmares—”

“Oh, what
ever
. I know you’d like to believe that, but you should know better. That drunk rapist is exactly what you are, when you strip away all special effects. A nothing who gets off on hurting people. And we’ve got him. Which means we’ve got
you
.”

“Nonsense,” Reave said. “I’ll have my guards bring up a board, and a bucket of piss, and I’m going to strap you down and pour urine across your face until you decide to leave this body and—”

“Hold that thought,” Marla said, and reached back in her mind for the connection to Genevieve, who was still staring at Terry Reeves.
Gen,
she thought.
Why don’t you give that bastard a slap?

What? I can’t. What if he—

He can’t do anything but
take
it
.

She felt a little surge of glee from Genevieve, who drew her hand back and slapped Terry Reeves hard across the face.

Reave, who’d been unspooling more threats, suddenly staggered back and clutched his cheek. “What—how did you—”

“Genevieve just slapped Terry Reeves. Felt that, did you? Guess you guys do have some connection, huh?”

“I—I’ll send my armies, and they’ll find her, find
you,
and Reeves, too. I’ll install him here in palatial comfort, he will never want for anything—”

“Try it,” Marla said. “My people are there, and Reeves will
die
if you make a move.”

Reave shrank visibly before her. From seven feet to six, then down to five and a half feet tall, no taller than the real Terry Reeves. The hem of his long black coat dragged the floor now. “What do you want?” he said at last. “A place in the new regime? Something can be arranged.”

“Oh, yeah, sign me up for a seat on the ruling council of the rapeocracy. Fuck you, Reave. All I want is for Genevieve to see you for what you are.”

Reave whimpered.

Back in Langford’s lab, the slap had awakened Terry Reeves, who tried to sit up, but was held down by his restraints. “Fuck is this? Head hurts,” he slurred, and Reave’s lips moved in the same words, though he didn’t actually speak. Now that Terry Reeves was awake, the connection—strengthened and reinforced by Hamil’s sympathetic magic—between Reave and himself was more noticeable, and Reave was probably seeing through Reeves’s eyes as well as his own.

Hamil stepped toward Reeves. “Terrence Reeves. Does this woman look familiar to you?”

The man narrowed his eyes. “Never seen her before in my life.”

Genevieve shuddered, a wave of revulsion passing through her and into Marla, but that revulsion was better than fear.

“You raped her in an alley not far from here, fifteen years ago.”

“Some vigilante bullshit, always harass me. I did my time, I never touched her,” he said, his mouth running on autopilot, and now the same words were coming from Reave’s mouth. Somewhere, far off in the black tower, bits of stone began to crumble and fall with distant crashes.

“You remember me,” Genevieve said slowly. “I see it in your mind. Why did you hurt me?”

“Fuck you, bitch, I’m innocent, let me go!” Terry yelled.

She shook her head. “You don’t even know why. You just…do these things. Because you like them. I wasn’t even a person to you.”

“I got rights,” Reeves said.

“Not today,” Rondeau said, flipping his butterfly knife nonchalantly open and closed.

“He’s only a little
nothing,
” Genevieve said. “In his mind that night he was so strong, unstoppable, a force of nature. But he’s just
crazy
.” And there was something in her mind like a dam breaking, like long-closed windows being thrown open, like a flipped circuit breaker being switched back. It was like light came pouring into her head, and just as suddenly, the ceiling of Reave’s tower room broke open, and by the gods, it was dawn in Felport already. “He’s
afraid
of me,” Genevieve said, real wonder and relief in her voice. Genevieve leaned close to Reeves, and then just shook her head. “We don’t need him anymore. Let him go back to his rot and ruin.”

“You’re not worried he’ll hurt someone else?” Rondeau said.

“Oh, no,” Genevieve said, and did something Marla didn’t quite understand, though she felt a twinge in her borrowed brain. Genevieve reached into Reeves’s mind and did
something,
and Reeves began to whimper and twitch. “I fixed that. He’ll never hurt anyone else. I gave him a little bit of what
I
have. He can never hurt anyone without feeling that hurt tenfold on himself.”

“Ha!” Marla said in the tower. “You hear that, Terry? You got a megadose of empathy. Suck on that, you fuck.”