Selene

It was an uncomfortable, mostly silent ride. Jorge didn’t speak in front of Price Netley, Nikolai’s chief attorney, a short thin man in a dapper dark-blue suit. Netley was blond, bland, and smooth; he stared at Selene’s legs, making no attempt to hide his interest. She began to wish she’d worn a coat—even a coat Nikolai had touched—when Netley transferred his gaze to her chest, and she was actively longing to punch him by the time he coughed and glanced up at her face, realizing she was watching him.

“See something you like?” She wet her lips with her tongue, just to play. The sweet musky perfume of her skin would be filling the car, making it damn hard to think, and the fact that he was Nikolai’s thrall only added to the nasty squirming sense of satisfaction under her breastbone. Go ahead, Netley. Keep staring. It won’t do you any good.

He flushed, and Jorge glanced into the car. He had been watching out the window as the limo pulled away from the curb, the heat of him comforting on her right side. “Selene?” Jorge’s tone was careful, mild, and held just a hint of a grumble.

Selene shrugged, settling back into the seat and crossing her ankles. Netley looked away. She’d made her point. Don’t stare at me like that. I don’t like it.

The black limo was the one Nikolai had sent for her before, one of the new hybrid antigrav-petroleo models, quiet and rolling on a cushion of invisible antifriction instead of tires. Nothing but the best and newest for the prime paranormal Power. A pale leather interior, a dry bar, and smoked glass between the seats and the driver’s section.

The first time she’d ever been in a limo, it ended up wrecked into a flaming ball of twisted metal, and Selene herself had barely escaped.

It had been one hell of a prom night. A couple of pro-Gilead reactionaries had decided to show their disapproval of the refugee camps by disrupting the one party the kids got, since it was “sinful” to dance. Selene still wasn’t sure if they’d picked her group because her Talent had just begun to show. But then, they’d hit the whole line of donated limos, old things that still ran solely on petroleo, and seventeen kids had died. The others. . .well, hospitals in the refugee camps weren’t the best.

She shivered, remembering screams and the smell of burning rubber and scorched metal, and the medallion warmed against her skin. There seemed to be a trickle of Power coming from it, seeping into her skin. That was new. Had she triggered something in it with the Work this morning?

Selene snagged the chain and drew it out from under her shirt, cupping the medallion in her palm. The lion’s head was the same, and the Nichtvren squiggles on the back. She touched the lion’s head, running her fingertip over the curve of the mane, testing the edge of the disc. Smooth and hard, impenetrable.

Just like Nikolai.

Netley made a small sound. Selene looked up at him. He had gone chalky-pale under his expensive blond haircut.

“What?” Her heart lodged in her throat. He looks like he’s about to have a cardiac arrest. “What is it? Netley?”

He didn’t answer, just looked hurriedly out the window. His Adam’s-apple bobbed as he swallowed.

“Jorge?”

But he was looking out the window too. A faint sheen of sweat showed on his bald head. Selene sighed.

“Someone will have to tell me what this is all about,” she said to the thick silence. Then she dropped the medallion back down inside her shirt and pulled her purse up onto her lap, hugging it. Maybe she shouldn’t have dressed professionally. Jeans and boots would have served her better, especially if she had to escape.

But if she escaped them, Nikolai would punish Jorge. The thought made Selene’s stomach flip. And that nausea made her skin flush.

I’ve really got to find a way to get out of here. There’s got to be somewhere I can live and not have to sell myself, someplace I can go where I won’t have to be what I am.

Yeah. If she moved out in the country she’d go mad once her charge ran out and her curse had no sex to feed on. That had almost happened before she and Danny had gotten clearance to leave the camp. They’d made it out just in time, right before mandatory Matheson testing became law. Selene might have been scooped up and sent to a parapsychic lab, or forced into one of many government programs meant to figure out just what the Awakening had done and how Power worked now.

As much as Selene hated the city, it kept her alive. At least being Nikolai’s slave left her largely free to do as she pleased—and kept the government from swallowing her for experimentation.

And she liked dressing this way. Nylons had been impossible to get in the camps, and heels? Forget it. Not to mention any decent lipstick.

She stared unseeing out the window, and it wasn’t until Jorge discreetly handed her a crisp white handkerchief that she noticed she was leaking again. Tears rolled down her cheeks, slick and hot.

She was just finished mopping at her face when the limo braked to a smooth stop in a No Parking zone directly in front of the South Side Precinct house, a concrete rectangle reinforced with chunks of the new plastic-steel stuff that was all over the city these days. Selene started to move, but Jorge’s fingers closed around her wrist. He was between her and the door, anyway.

The medallion suddenly flared with heat, but Jorge didn’t seem to notice anything. “Let me, Selene. Please.”

Selene settled back into the seat. It was pointless to argue.

Jorge got out, then Netley, and she was finally able to slide across the seat and duck out of the limo’s quiet cocoon, taking Jorge’s broad warm hand to steady herself. Heels weren’t the ideal footwear for struggling out of a car.

She set off for the stairs that led up to the front doors of the precinct house, her heels cracking against the pavement. There was a knot of people standing off to one side with a TV van. That was usual, since the cop show was full of excitement these days, with the postwar reconstruction going on and weapons all over. So Selene ignored it—until they caught sight of her.

There was a mad scramble that ended with flashbulbs popping and Jorge pushing through a sudden crowd. Selene, shocked, stumbled behind him, Netley’s hand suddenly around her elbow. They must mistake me for someone else, she thought, and when they finally gained the safety of the doors, she looked over at Netley and tore her arm out of his grip. “What the hell?”

“I was afraid of that,” Netley said grimly. “I’ll tell Bradley to use the parking garage to pick us up. How long will you be, Miss Thompson?”

“I don’t know. It depends on what Jack says.” The precinct was linoleum tile floors and fluorescent lights, cops passing back and forth, people moving like tides. There was a brass statue of Justice tucked into a niche, her eyes covered by the obligatory brass handkerchief, and a carved motto in Latin. Something pretentious about the truth setting you free. “Netley? What’s going on?”

His eyes were dark and troubled. “I’ll come back up every half-hour then,” Netley said. “Jorge?”

Jorge nodded. The attorney plunged back out through the glass door and into the waiting knot of reporters. Selene watched this, mystified. “For Christos’s sake, I know where to go—” she began, but Jorge was already speaking to the desk-sergeant.

The Sarge—a tall plump mustachioed man whose uniform badge said Parker—glanced over Selene, glanced again, licking his lips with a bloodless tongue, and proceeded to stare at her breasts while he told Jorge to go up to the third floor, turn right, and find office 312. Selene suffered this in silence and let Jorge lead her away from the front desk and to the elevators. He punched the ‘up’ button, and Selene glanced back, casually, to see the desk Sarge hook up the phone and talk into it while staring at her ass.

It was so depressingly par for the course that Selene sighed and followed the bald man into the elevator. Her eyes felt hot and grainy from crying. “Jorge, what the hell is going on?”

“Maybe they just liked your looks,” he replied, deadpan.

So he does have a sense of humor. Good for him. Selene bit the inside of her cheek. “Would Nikolai tell me what’s going on?” She reached down, gripping the round handrail at hip-height. Her knuckles were white.

“Probably. You’d have to ask him. I’m sorry, Selene.”

Meaning, I can’t tell you a damn thing, and even if I could I probably wouldn’t. “Me too. I thought you were a decent guy, Jorge.”

He had no snappy comeback for that.

Selene could have told him where Detective Jack Pepper’s office was, but she wasn’t in a mood to play tour guide. Sarge had given Jorge good directions, and it was only a few minutes until she was standing in Jack’s tiny cluttered domain, looking at the familiar eternally-dying plant—a wandering Jew that Jack had been trying to kill for two years now—and the stacks of paperwork.

She looked up at Jorge, whose large hands were folded one over the other in a classic bodyguard pose. “I’m not going anywhere,” she said, dully. “Can you go down to the corner and get me a latte, please? I think I’ll need the caffeine.” Coffee had been hard to get after the War, at least for the first few years. It was still worth its weight in flesh or gold out in the camps. Or it had been when Selene left.

He considered this. “Do you promise not to go anywhere else?”

Selene would have been furious if she hadn’t been fighting back more tears. “I give my word.”

The tall bald man nodded. He disappeared, closing the door behind him. Selene stood at the window, looking down at the front steps of the precinct house. The limo pulled away from the curb on its cushion of air, and she was suddenly, powerfully, tempted to run. Her heart leapt, and she rested her forehead against the chilly glass. Condensation spread out from her breath touching the cold slick surface.

The air stirred uneasily. Selene breathed slowly, frustrated. If Nikolai was here—but that’s ridiculous. He wouldn’t be here during the day. And anyway, if he was here he’d only make it worse, trying to order me around.

The sounds of the precinct—murmurs of voices, footsteps, phones ringing, doors slamming—blurred together as Selene glared out the window, not seeing anything except clouds and the street below, empty cardboard people walking through their empty cardboard lives. The lump in her throat crested, and she wished that she was home, curled in her warm bed, watching whatever rain could make it into the alley bead on the window. This was definitely a day for staying in bed and forgetting about the rest of the whole goddamn planet.

Oh, Danny. I’m so sorry, I wasn’t there in time. I should never have left you alone. I should have lived with you, I should have found a way.

The door banged open and Jack Pepper stalked in, his mournful hound-dog face drawn up in a grimace under a grim, thinning quarter-inch of brown hair. He saw her and stopped dead, a steaming cup of ash-smelling coffee in his hand. “Ah. Thompson.”

“Hi, Jack.” Selene turned from the window and hopped up to sit on the ledge, crossing her legs. “Mind telling me what the fuck is up? I just got mugged by press vultures.”

“Aw, Christos.” Jack rolled his eyes. “Good morning to you too.”

Selene, settled in the window, just looked at him. He kicked the door closed and got right down to business. “My hands are fucking tied, princess. The word is down from on high that this is a Paranormal Case, and no exceptions. I can’t do a goddamn thing, even on my off-hours.” He stalked over to the desk and shoved aside a stack of paper to make room for his coffee cup. His suit jacket—the same one he’d been wearing early that morning at Danny’s apartment—hung on the wooden chair behind his desk. His shoulder holster snagged on the thinning material of his dress shirt, which was holding up remarkably well. Selene only counted one hole in it, a small cigarette burn on his right cuff.

“Why would this be declared untouchable even if it is a PC, Jack?” Selene asked, reasonably enough. She rubbed at her forehead with her fingertips, feeling the skin move over the bone. The floral musk of her skin filled the office by now. She watched Jack’s shoulders come up and his head drop a little, like a turtle, and her eyes dropped to his pants.

Nothing yet, not even a telltale twitch. Jack was remarkably resistant to her. It was one of the best things about him.

He shot her a withering look. His buzzcut was wilting, lying flat against his head, and that disturbed Selene more than anything else. “‘Cause something’s going on, that’s why. And it’s probably your bloodsucking boyfriend behind it. God knows he’s behind everything else in this fuckin’ town.”

“He’s not my boyfriend—” she began, pitching her voice deliberately low. He’s my owner. Get it straight.

Jack shivered. “Oh, come off it, Lena! Every time you get in trouble, he shows up and bails your ass out.”

Goddamn you. “Jack, I’m warning you.” Her voice was rising. So was his. Jack’s cheeks were flushed and his hands shook. Selene sat bolt-upright on the window sill, her own hands curled into fists. She didn’t glance at his crotch. She was fairly sure he had a hard-on by now. The anger would make him easier to affect.

“Christos, Selene. Don’t start.”

“I need your help,” she said, softly. Come on, Jack. You like me. I’m like your little sister, remember? I babysit your kids. Maureen likes me. You want to help me. “You knew I’d ask, Jack. I need you to help me on this. I want to find him. The fucker that killed my Danny. I want him, you help me.” She folded her arms, her fingers digging into her biceps.

“I can’t lose my job, Lena.” Jack stalked over to the window, looking out over the rain-slick street below. His jaw was working, a muscle twitching high up in his cheek. “I got Maureen and the kids to think about. The word’s out, both officially and off the record—leave the Thompson case alone.”

Selene’s lips compressed into a thin line. She looked down at the street too, turning her face away from him. Silence stretched between them, a thin crystalline quiet full of the things they never said to each other. She could have moved closer to him, brushed against him, but she didn’t.

“Alton Gresham,” she said, finally. “James Darryl Gray.”

“Selene—” Jack took a half step away from her, along the window.

“Tyreese Nottingham. Lee Merrick Jones. Jimmy Dobbs Creech.” Selene’s voice broke. “Jerril Hightower. Allan Bowen. Do I need to go on?” Should I start listing the names of their victims, too?

Jack’s head dropped even further. He looked down at the window ledge. She didn’t move. If she did, he would look at her legs under her skirt. I’m sorry, Jack, I really am.

“You’ve helped me,” he said. “That’s right. You got scumbags off the street—it was the right thing to do.”

The right thing to do? And you wouldn’t leave me alone once you found out I could track the bastards, even after years and the War and the death of witnesses and God alone knows what else. And it doesn’t matter to you that I have to sell my fucking body to do it, does it? No. You got what you wanted and now it’s too bad for me. Just like a man. “Yeah,” Selene said. Come on, Jack. Prove me wrong. “And catching the scumbag that did a fucking Inquisitor job on my brother is the right thing to do. Whoever it is tore him apart. Into little tiny pieces. Just like a Heretic’s Tangle.”

He actually went pale. Jack was old enough to have seen footage from the Republic’s mass public ceremonies of purification. He was old enough to remember all sorts of things.

Jack took in a deep breath. Then he turned around, picked up a slim manila folder from his desk. “For God’s sake, don’t let anyone but Nikolai see this. I can’t help you, Selene. But I’ll look the other way, okay? It’s all I can do. Come on.”

Selene nodded. Well, that’s more than I hoped for, at least. She shoved the folder into her purse, mashing to make it fit, and pulled the zipper closed. “All right. I guess.” She couldn’t help herself. “You bastard.” Her voice broke, and she swallowed harshly.

“I can’t afford to piss Nikolai off. I got a mortgage and two kids, Lena,” He was still staring at the window ledge. “And Maureen.”

“Yeah. You’re lucky. All I had was my brother.” That and a sucktooth breathing down my neck, wanting to own me. She hopped down off the window ledge. Jack’s eyes shifted up to her breasts, and color began to stain his flat cheeks. “What can you tell me, Jack? Anything?”

There was a tap on the door, and Jorge opened it, a sixteen-ounce latte balanced delicately in one large hand. “Your coffee, Miss Selene. Detective.” He nodded to Jack, his bald head gleaming.

Dammit. Just when I was getting somewhere.

“I take it you’re Nikolai’s representative.” Jack’s shoulders went back and he dropped into the only chair in the office that wasn’t buried under a drift of paper—the one behind his desk. The ancient wooden thing creaked alarmingly as he leaned back. “I have your statement from last night, Lena. Want to eyeball it?”

Selene nodded and slid down from the window ledge. She slid her purse strap up her arm, taking the papers Jack held up over his shoulder. “I guess so. I suppose if I want to make corrections, you’ll tell me not to waste my time?”

“Take it up with Nikolai, not me,” Jack snapped. “So, Mister. . .?” He looked up at Jorge, trailing off.

Lena scanned the statement. As the official version of last night’s events, it left out about three-quarters of what actually happened and didn’t mention Nikolai at all. She picked up a pen from Jack’s cluttered desk and bent down to sign it. Jack’s eyes skittered over the desk, touched her face, and Selene glanced up to see the detective look hurriedly away.

“Czestowitz,” Jorge said. “Jorge Czestowitz.”

“Good Christos.” Jack sounded half impressed. “Gesundheit. Nicetameetcha.”

Selene tossed the signed statement onto Jack’s desk. “Ciao, Pepper. I’m going to pick up some mementos from my brother’s apartment. Unless I’m not allowed to even grieve for him.”

“Why don’t you get out of my face, Thompson?” Jack snarled back. There were half-moons of sweat on his wilting shirt, under his arms. “Go and play with your bloodsucking boyfriend, why don’t you?”

Oh, I’d love to. I’d love to take a stake and about fifty gallons of petroleo to the bastard. And I’m not going to forget this, Jack. You can hunt your own goddamn murderers from now on. “Fuck you,” Selene tossed over her shoulder as she took her latte from Jorge and opened Jack’s office door. “Don’t call me, Pepper. I’ll call you.” So I can tell you to go to hell.

“Yeah, likewise,” Jack muttered, and Selene heard Jorge’s heavy footsteps behind her as she clicked out into the hall, swallowing the lump in her throat. That went well. Better than I thought it would, really.

So why do I feel like screaming?