"I, uh, well, I got here — Darmstadt — to find — " I double-check my phone to confirm we're in secure mode " — new orders waiting for me, care of Boris and the two mad mice.
Almost got run off the autobahn on the way in and, well — "
"Car accident"
"Sort of. Anyway, I'm being shunted off on a side trip instead of coming home. So I won't be back for the weekend."
"Shit."
"My thoughts exactly."
"Where are they sending you"
"To Saint Martin, in the Caribbean."
"The — "
"And it gets worse."
"Do I want to hear this, love"
"Probably not." Pause. "Okay. I'm sitting down."
"It's a joint operation. They've inflicted a minder from the Black Chamber on me."
"But — Bob! That's crazy! It just doesn't happen! Nobody even knows what the Black Chamber is really called! 'No Such Agency' meets 'Destroy Before Reading.' Are you telling me ..."
"I haven't been fully briefed. But I figure it's going to be extremely ungood, for, like, Amsterdam values of ungood." I shudder. Our little weekend trip to Amsterdam involved more trouble than you can shake a shitty stick at. "I guess you know the Chamber specializes in taking the HUM out of HUMINT? Golems and remote viewing and so forth, never send a human agent to do a job a zombie can do? Anyway, the minder they've sent me is, you know, existentially challenged.
They've sicced a demon on me."
"Jesus, Bob."
"Yeah, well, He isn't answering the phone."
"I can't believe it. The bastards."
"Listen, I've got a feeling there's more to this than meets the eye and I need someone watching my back who isn't just looking for a good spot to sink their fangs into. Can you do some discreet digging when you get back to the office? Ask Andy, perhaps? This is under Angleton, by the way."
"Angleton." Mo's voice goes flat and cold, and the hair on the back of my neck rises. She blames Angleton for a lot of things, and it could turn very ugly if she decides to let it all hang out. "I should have guessed. It's about time that bastard faced the music."
"Don't go after him!" I say urgently. "You're not meant to know this. Remember, all you know is I've been sent off somewhere to do a job."
"But you want me to keep my ear to the ground and listen for oncoming train wrecks."
"That's about the size of it. I'm missing you."
"Love you, too." A pause. "What is it about this spook that's got you so upset"
Whoops. I'm no good at hiding things from her, am I?
"For starters she's crazier than a legful of ferrets. She's seriously bad magic, wearing a perpetual glamour — level three, if I'm any judge of such things. The only thing keeping her on track is the geas that ate Montana. She's not a free actor.
Actress."
"Uh-huh. What else"
I lick my lips. "Boris, um, applied some sort of destinyentanglement protocol to us. I didn't run away fast enough."
"Destiny — what? Entanglement? What's that"
I take a deep breath. "I'm not sure, but I'd appreciate it if you could find out and tell me. Because whatever it is, it's scaring me."
It's still early in the evening, but my encounter with Ramona has shaken me, and I don't much want to run into Pinky and Brains again (if they haven't already packed up and left: there's quite a lot of banging coming from next door). I decide to hole up in my room and lick my wounded dignity, so I order up a cardboard cheeseburger from room service, have a long soak under the shower, watch an infinitely forgettable movie on cable, and turn in for the night.
I don't usually remember my dreams because they're mostly surreal and/or incomprehensible — two-headed camels stealing my hovercraft, bat-winged squid gods explaining why I ought to accept job offers from Microsoft, that sort of thing — so what makes this one stand out is its sheer gritty realism. Dreaming that I'm me is fine. So is dreaming that I'm an employee of a vast software multinational, damned and enslaved by an ancient evil. But dreaming that I'm an overweight fifty-something German sales executive from an engineering firm in Dusseldorf is so far off the map that if I wasn't asleep I'd pinch myself. I'm at a regional sales convention and I've been drinking and living large. I like these conferences: I can get away from Hilda and cut loose party like a young thing again. The awards dinner is over and I split off with a couple of younger fellows I know vaguely, which is how we end up in the casino. I don't usually gamble much but I'm on a winning streak at the wheel, and all the ladies love a winning streak; between the brandy, the Cohiba panatelas, and the babe who's attached herself to my shoulder — a call girl, naturlich but classy — I'm having the time of my life. She leans against me and suggests I might cash in my winnings, and this strikes me as a good idea. After all, if I keep gambling, my streak will end sooner or later, won't it? Let it pay for her tonight.
We're in the lift, heading up to my room on the fourteenth floor, and she's nuzzling up against me. I haven't felt smooth flesh like this in ... too long. Hilda was never like that and since the kids the only side of her body she's shown me is the sharp edge of her tongue: serves her right if I enjoy myself once in a while. The babe's got her arms around me inside my jacket and I can feel her body through her dress.
Wow. This has been a day to remember! We cuddle some more and I lead her to my room, tiptoeing — she's giggling quietly, telling me not to make a noise, not to disturb the neighbors — and I get the door open and she tells me to go wait in the bathroom while she gets ready. How much does she want? I ask. She shakes her head and says, Two hundred but only if I'm happy. Well, how can I refuse an offer like that?
In the bathroom I take my shoes off, remove my jacket and tie — enough. She calls to say she's ready, and I open the door. She's lying on the bed, in a provocative position that still allows her to see me. She's taken off her dress: smooth, stocking-clad thighs and a waterfall of pure corn-silk hair, blue eyes like ice diamonds that I can fall into and drown.
My heart is pounding as if I've run a marathon, or I'm about to have a heart attack. She's smiling at me, hungry, needy; I take a step forwards. My back is clammy with cold sweat and my crotch feels like a steel bar, painfully erect. I need her like I've never needed a woman before. Another step. Another.
She smiles and kneels on the carpet in front of me, opening her mouth to take me in. I dread her touch, even though I blindly crave it. Tap-dancing on the third rail, I think fuzzily, trying to force my paralyzed ribs to take a racking breath of air as she reaches out to touch me.
"Uh-uh!"
I open my eyes. It's dark in the hotel room, my heart's hammering, and I'm lying in a puddle of cold sweat with an erection like a lump of wood and a ghastly sense of horror squatting on my chest. "Uh!" All I can do is grunt feebly. I flail for a bit, then shove the clammy sheet away from me.
I'm erect — and it's not like waking from an erotic dream, it's more like someone's using a farmyard device to milk me. "Ugh." I begin to sit up, meaning to go to the bathroom and towel my back off, and right then I come.
It's weird, and wonderful, like no orgasm I've ever had before. It seems to go on and on forever, scratching the unscratchable itch inside me with an intensity that rapidly becomes unbearable. There's something about it that feels terminal — not repeatable, an endpoint in someone's life.
When it begins to subside I whimper slightly and reach for my crotch. Surprise: I'm still erect — and my skin is dry.
That wasn't me, I realize, disturbed. That was Ramona — I clutch my prick protectively.
Distant laughter. **Go on, jerk yourself off.** There's a warm glow of satisfaction in her stomach. **You know you really want to, don't you?** she thinks, licking her lips and sending me the taste of semen. Then I feel her reach over and pull the sheets up over the dead businessman's face.