Ana Esthesia had a mental defect; she claimed to be able to rid herself of any kind of pain by inflicting the equal and opposite pain on others. Shoot her in the leg, and she’d immediately recover after shooting you in the leg. CI-6 experts could find no physiological basis for this claim; they thought she was nuts. She considered it a superpower. They tagged her “Ana Esthesia” as a joke. She called them names—asshat, fucktard—so she’d feel better. Sticks and stones, and all that.
She went in first.
There were only two ways into Lee Michaels’s apartment: up a caged elevator within a high tower that gave the complex its name, or up a winding set of concrete stairs. The elevator clacked and hummed so loudly it might as well have been an announcement: Hello there—coming up to kill you! So Ana opted for the concrete stairs.
She jumped a white partition meant to give the apartment’s patio a little privacy. She crouched down then inched her away around to the glass-paneled door, which opened out.
She didn’t carry weapons. She liked to use what she could find.
She found something on the patio: a little metal table, with a glass ashtray and a couple of Corona Extra bottle caps littering the top.
She cleared off the crap, hurled the table through the glass.
She stepped in directly behind it.
Kowalski was too distracted by Vanessa’s new hair color to fully comprehend why the glass patio door had suddenly exploded and a surly-looking teenager had come charging through it.
The teenager pushed Vanessa to the floor. Vanessa’s towel unraveled. The sight distracted Kowalski for another fraction of a second. In the time they’d been living together, he’d never seen her naked before.
The teenager charged and smashed her forehead into Kowal-ski’s. His eyes teared up, and he staggered back into the kitchen. It was difficult to keep his balance; his leg was still in a light brace. The Sierra Nevada slipped out of his hand, shattered on the floor.
The teenager was grinning.
Through blurred vision he could see her face a little better, and okay, maybe she wasn’t quite a teenager. She had young features, though—small mouth, upturned nose. And her dark hair had an ice-blue streak running down the front, which is some kind of silly shit teenagers do to worry their parents.
She reached out and slapped Kowalski’s face, as if to get his attention.
Then she followed up with a short, shockingly hard punch to his mouth, which loosened two of his teeth.
Kowalski slapped out at her, like he was trying to kill a fly. It was suddenly very hard to see. There were three teenagers standing in front of him. He was swallowing his own blood. Blood and pale ale: not a recommended combination.
Goddamnit, what had just happened?
The three teenagers wound up for another punch. Kowalski snapped off something cheap and dirty at the middle teenager. Her lip split.
Her eyes fluttered, and her lips quivered, as if she were going to cry. Jesus, he’d just punched a little girl in the fucking face.
Then she lashed out and nailed him in the mouth again. That one did the trick. Kowalski felt two teeth roll back onto his tongue. He had big teeth.
The teenager’s face changed. Tears went bye-bye; now she was beaming like it was Christmas morning.
“Hah!” she shouted.
What the fuck was wrong with her? Kowalski thought, trying to catch his own teeth before he swallowed them.
And how did they know about this place?
How did you know about the place?” “You led us there,” the interrogator said.
“So I didn’t lose the first team in Inglewood?”
“No, you did. They were even shot at by a couple of gang-bangers. Which made for an amusing getaway interlude. People are still giving them shit about it.”
“So how did you find us?”
The interrogator paused, then smiled. “You really don’t know, do you? Ana must have hit you harder than I thought.”
Kowalski looked down at the table. His vision still wasn’t right. His perfect 20/20 vision went away the moment that blue-streaked teenager headbutted him. The bitch.
Cunt,” Vanessa said, then smashed the teenager in the head with a steel tea kettle.
The girl fell to her hands and knees, scream-cried. She sounded like a tea kettle. Kowalski followed through with a boot stomp on her back, smashing her into the jagged remnants of the Sierra Nevada.
Kowalski looked up to Vanessa, who had three sets of breasts and six nipples.
God his vision was fucked.
Think about that later. Kowalski turned and spat blood into the sink. A tooth landed on porcelain. Another tumbled down the drain.
“Shit,” he said. He’d lost some upper teeth before, never one on the bottom row. It had been a point of pride with him. A small point, but still. Motherfucker. He picked up the remaining tooth, closed it in his right fist.
The teenager on the floor was sobbing violently now, her lungs pumping hard, her fingers shaking, her eyes squeezed shut, and a blood-line of drool connecting her lower lip to the floor.
“Hey,” Vanessa said, crouching down. “Come on now. Stop it.” She reached to touch the girl’s leg.
“Wait,” Kowalski said. “She’s …”
Too late.
The teenager nailed Vanessa in the tits with her boot, sending her backwards across the kitchen. She crashed into the table, one end of which flipped up and hit her in the back of the head.
It would have been funny if it hadn’t looked so painful.
The teenager sprung to her feet, never mind that the act of pushing her palms against the bottle shards cut them deeper. She still was an absolute mess, all drool and blood and tears, but she looked deliriously happy.
Vanessa moaned and struggled to catch her breath. Her fingers clawed at the linoleum as if there were some kind of painkiller hidden beneath.
“You’re sensitive there, I can feel it,” the girl said, then saw a corkscrew on the kitchen counter. Kowalski had bought it at Vons along with the pinot noir. The teenager considered it quickly; decided it would do.
She reached out for it.
Kowalski wrapped his right arm around her neck and squeezed.
This was Kowalski’s signature move. He likened himself to the trash monster from Star Wars-, once he had you locked in, there was little you could use outside the power of the motherfucking Force to free yourself.
Unfortunately, the teenager was quick. She already had the corkscrew in her hand.
The Motherfucking Force vs. $3.99 corkscrew from Vons over on Sunset.
She sliced his cheek. Kowalski tilted his head back, squeezed harder. She whipped around, caught him on a love handle. The sharp point tore his flesh. Fuck, she was a squirmy thing.
He continued squeezing.
By the time the teenager was unconscious, Kowalski had puncture wounds and gashes in his leg, back, face, and forearm. As well as his right love handle.
He let her drop to the kitchen floor, then sat down to collect his thoughts and take stock of his injuries. Which were fairly numerous, for what was essentially twenty seconds of wild slashing violence. He ran his tongue around his mouth, feeling if anything else was loose.
Across the room, Vanessa pushed herself up on her arms.
“I fooking wish you carried a gun,” she said.
“I wish I carried dental insurance,” Kowalski said. He opened his right fist and looked down at his bloodied tooth.