The Bone Triangle (10 page)

“Dice? That’s your power? What do they do?”

“Just try it.”

She took up the die with her eyes brightly lit. For the first time since I met her, she seemed entranced. The artifacts were like that—they often filled a person with greed. As she took it up, I half expected her to vanish and run off with my die. It didn’t have any power, of course. I had no intentions of handing over a real item of power to a thief I’d just met.

She rolled a four. I took the die from the table and shook it in my hand.

“Name a number,” I said.

“What? Oh, um…six.”

I used the power of the wedding ring and rolled a six. I picked the die up and repeated the stunt four more times. Each time, she named a number and I rolled that exact number.

“That is pretty cool,” she admitted, “but I don’t see how this led you to me.”

I smiled. “It’s not just about rolling what you want,” I said. “It’s about odds—luck in general.”

Her eyes widened again. “You mean…you can, like, win the lottery if you want to?”

I put away the red die. Her eyes followed it as I did so. “Sort of. Anyway, I showed you mine.”

“Okay, yeah, you did. Now what?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you going to try to drag me back to my mom?”

I shook my head. “No, but if you don’t mind, I’d like to take your picture with my cell.”

“To prove you found me?”

“Exactly.”

She let me do it, and gave me a big smile and the finger as my phone flashed. I laughed. She was a wild one, all right. I felt a certain attraction toward her. I liked the wild ones. I knew it was a personality flaw, but I couldn’t help it. I sent the picture to Karen Swanson electronically. That should be worth another five thousand. I wouldn’t call it easy money, but I’ve had worse days.

When Jacqueline and I left the restaurant it was about midnight.

“Where are you headed?” I asked.

“Have you got a car?”

I shook my head.

She frowned. “You can roll whatever you want with dice, and you don’t have a car?”

“The casinos catch on eventually. They have cameras, and they remember faces. They aren’t too thrilled with me.”

“I see,” she said, looking at me oddly.

“What are you thinking?”

“That you and I are quite a bit alike.”

I didn’t really agree, but I knew what she meant.

“I guess this is where we go our own ways,” she said.

I looked at her and nodded. I pulled out my cell phone. “Your mother thought you might be in trouble. I can see you are—but only through faults of your own. You don’t need rescuing at the moment.”

“I thank you for recognizing that fact.”

“But I was hired to help you if you needed the help. So here, let’s exchange info. If you need me you can call this number.”

We tapped data into two tiny screens. Suddenly, she leaned close to me and kissed me. I blinked in surprise. She pulled back, beaming up at me. “Thanks a lot for finding me. Just tell Mom I’m fine, and I’ll come back when I’m really, really bored. Bye now!”

I caught her wrist with my left hand. She gasped and sputtered. I held out my hand.

“Give it back,” I said.

She looked embarrassed and I let go of her. A small red cube fell out of her hand into my waiting palm. She’d dug it out of my pocket while covering the move with that surprise kiss.

“Do you really need a lucky die when you can already go invisible?” I asked her in annoyance.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know—I just couldn’t stop thinking about it.”

“The objects make most people want them. Fight the feeling, you’ll live longer.”

Jacqueline cocked her head to one side and eyed me. “You don’t seem as curious about my source of power. Why is that?”

“I said
most
people want them. I feel it, too, but I can control my greed.”

She nodded and walked away down the Strip. The red die didn’t have any powers, but I was still annoyed since she’d tried to rob me twice within the span of an hour.

I reached the corner and stood under a stoplight, waiting for the red hand to change into the green walking man. I glanced back, but she wasn’t in sight. I felt a pang of regret. I told myself I should have been nicer to her as we parted. I shook my head, trying to erase all thoughts of Jacqueline Swanson. It was difficult. She’d looked good in her picture and even better in person. Why was I always attracted to troublemakers?

I pulled out my cell and phoned the woman’s mother to give her the good news, in case she hadn’t read her e-mail yet. There was no answer, so I texted her the photo again and a brief message asking when we should meet. I could really use another five thousand about now.

The next problem was one of sleeping arrangements. I was getting tired, and I was still sore from Cartoon’s fists. A normal man would be swollen and marked up, but my bruises were already fading. I always healed fast, a power given to me by an old photograph that may or may not be a picture of me as a baby. That one I kept taped against my skin. I possessed four artifacts in all: the sunglasses, the photo, the wedding ring, and one more that was weird enough to get me arrested if it was ever found. This last artifact was a dead alien’s finger. It caused other people’s powers to fail when used against me directly. It didn’t stop effects like Jacqueline’s invisibility or the cat-assassin’s thrown projectiles. Just powers that came at me head-on like fireballs and mental attacks. I wore it like a talisman, hung in a tiny vial around my neck on a leather thong.

I walked to the south end of the Strip where the hotels were cheap and small. Taking a room at a place that had
a sleeping sheep as a logo, I paid with the cash I’d gotten back from Jacqueline and went in to take a shower. I took all my special items with me, of course, and locked the door.

After a steamy fifteen minutes, I felt a lot better. I came out rubbing a towel on my head.

“You take forever to shower,” a female voice said.

I stopped rubbing my wet hair and jerked my head up. Jacqueline stood in the room. She had my gun in one hand and my red die in the other.

I stared at her, taking it all in. I’d taken my real items of power into the bathroom—but not my gun. I was slipping up.

“Could you aim that somewhere else?” I asked.

“Could you put your clothes on?”

We both complied with the other’s wishes. I watched her out of the corner of my eye. There were moments when I felt I could have safely attacked her and taken her down, but I didn’t. I wanted to know why she was in my room.

“I was under the impression that our date was over,” I said. “I hadn’t taken you for the stalker type.”

She snorted. She threw the red die on the table. It bounced and clattered. When it came to rest, it displayed two white dots on top.

“Do you know what number I wished to roll?” she asked.

“A seven?”

“A five. You lied. I tried this thing, like, twenty times. It never rolls what I want—well, almost never. It did twice in a row once, and I thought I had it. After that, nothing. You conned me. This die doesn’t do anything, does it?”

“You followed me all the way down here and snuck into my room. How the hell did you do that?”

She looked slightly proud. “I was there when you checked in. I saw what room they gave you—then I stole the extra key.”

I walked over to the red die on the table. I considered jumping her then. I was very close. I figured she might not know enough about guns to shoot me with my .32. I considered my chances—they were pretty good. If she did hit me, I would probably heal up before I died. But still, it would hurt a lot. Sadly, none of my objects gave me the power to ignore pain.

“So, is this a robbery, or what?”

“No,” she said, placing the gun on the table.

I snatched it up the moment she did so. She watched me warily. “Why do you have a gun, anyway?”

“To shoot nosy people who break into my room.”

She laughed nervously. “I came because I want to know more. You bullshitted me a bit back there at the restaurant. I don’t blame you for that. I wouldn’t trust me, either. So, forget about how your powers work. I don’t care. Just help me understand mine. Tell me how these objects work. How many are there? Who has them? So many questions! After you walked off, I couldn’t stand it. I want to know—
everything
!”

“Do you have money?”

“Some, yeah. Why?”

“Go buy a twelve-pack of beer and bring it back. And get yourself something, too. What do you like? Wine coolers?”

She made a face. “Champagne.”

“Okay, go buy some of the best. Bring it back here. We’ll talk. It will take awhile.”

Her face lit up again, but she was still suspicious. “You’ll
really
be here when I get back? You aren’t just saying this to ditch me?”

“I
should
ditch you. I have every reason in the world to do so. But I’m not that bright.”

Jacqueline squinted at me, trying to read my meaning.

“I’ll still be here,” I said gently.

She left, and I stretched out on the bed, wondering what I was getting myself into.

I told her the whole story. All about the artifacts and how they were made. She’d learned about the nuclear tests out in the Nevada desert from school, but I filled in the blanks I had pieced together. As best I and others could surmise, those tests had disrupted the physics on this part of the planet.

“Possibly, they did more than just develop the atomic bomb out here. I think they tried other experiments—maybe tests that weren’t successful. I think they woke up some things. Bad things.”

Jacqueline looked at me thoughtfully. “So these items with strange powers only seem to show up around here? In southern Nevada?”

“As far as anyone I’ve met knows, it is restricted to this area.”

“But why isn’t the government in on it? Aren’t there scientists and reporters trying to dig deeper?”

I shrugged. “It’s not under the jurisdiction of any official group. I think the FBI rolls their eyes at the reports coming out of this town. I think the really wild stuff gets buried along with the hoaxes and crackpots. Imagine if Bigfoot were real—he’d have a hard time getting an interview today after so many people have embarrassed themselves publicly with false evidence. I’m sure these events have been brought to the attention of the media, but they assume it’s all nonsense. In the end, freak events are reported on websites like mine, for the most part. They might get mentioned on midnight radio stations after that; then someone in the mainstream media looks at it, laughs, and the report is forgotten.”

“I think something deeper is going on. The government is covering up something big, and a lot of people are in on it. All these objects—the Beast. Someone has to be keeping a lid on it all.”

“Maybe,” I agreed.

“But how do you know it was the bomb tests?” she asked after thinking for another moment. “Have you been out there? To Indian Springs and Camp Mercury? They used to have tours, you know.”

“Yeah, I need to get out there someday. But I’ve been too busy battling otherworldly invaders, paying bills, and just plain staying alive.”

She smiled. “I guess I’ve been too busy having fun with my own power. You were right. It’s almost addictive, like some kind of drug. Once I started doing it, I kept coming up with more ideas. I’ve taken things, played tricks, all sorts of stuff. I feel a little bad about it now.”

“All rogues need to learn self-discipline,” I told her seriously. “We’re doomed otherwise.”

I spun her a few grim tales, such as the story of Robert Townsend, a man I’d hunted down months ago. He’d lost
his way and overused his powers as well. Some people did seem to be able to control it better than others. I put myself in that category, and McKesson. I wasn’t sure why I had a stronger resistance than most, but I knew that I did.

After another round of drinks, we moved on to discussing how the objects themselves had been created and how they functioned. I presented a number of theories to her, most of which were based on conjecture. The best theory I’d heard was that they were related to the intersplicing of other realities or dimensions. According to this logic, the nuclear tests that had gone on here in our little slice of desert for over forty years had done some kind of damage to our local reality. Cracks in the universe had appeared, fractures between existences. The barriers between our continuum and others had broken down and
thinned
.

Over time, it had become possible to venture between these alien realities. The other worlds were similar to ours, but there were always differences. Some worlds followed different physical laws. Others just seemed to be alien planets.

The theory on how the artifacts worked went like this: if a fracture was created between two worlds, one where metal was soft and another where metal was rigid, an object at that point of intersection between the two worlds might be made. The item would have the power to change the realities of one world, interchanging them with those of another. This example attempted to explain the origins of my sunglasses. They must have been present at the exact moment a fracture was created between our world and one with soft metals. Now I could use my sunglasses to soften metal at will, thus opening locks and the like.