The Bone Triangle (19 page)

“Well, is that where you want to go?” Karen asked.

“No,” Jacqueline said. “Take me to your house, Mom.”

“Let me get this right; you’re coming home with me?”

“If you let Mr. Draith stay a few days to recover, then yes.”

Her mother made a sound of disgust. “I get it now. You’ve been sleeping together, haven’t you? I should never have sent this man looking for you. What did he tell you? He’s in some kind of trouble with the police, isn’t he? I’m sorry I ever hired him.”

“It’s not like that, Mother. Don’t start talking Quentin down. He risked his life for me.”

The discussion went on for some time in this vein, but at last Karen Swanson agreed to her daughter’s terms. By the end of it, I had a better understanding of exactly why Jacqueline had been so anxious to leave home. These two didn’t get along.

“You can stay for now, Draith. But you’ll sleep on the couch. Please don’t make a mess—and don’t get too comfortable, either.”

“There’s one more thing, Ms. Swanson,” I said.

“Why am I not surprised? What?”

I lifted my hand and extended my arm between the seats, holding my upraised palm under her nose. “I’ll take my final payment now. I feel I’ve earned it.”

Jacqueline and her mother lived in a small mansion of their own and had plenty of spare cash to live on. I enjoyed my stay there, at least initially. For me, it was a peaceful timeout from what was usually a hectic life.

I took several days to update my blog,
Draith’s Weird Stuff
. It never had paid the bills, but my readers were faithful, if few in number. After reading over the obits, I had my story.

A neighborhood known as the Triangle has long plagued the citizens of our fair city. Sitting to the west of the Strip, the region is infamous for crime and strange happenings. I’m sorry to report that events there have taken a turn for the worse. Cases of vanishing street people are nothing new in this blighted area, but what has become noteworthy in recent weeks is the reappearance of their remains. Glistening
piles of bone, thrown onto the sidewalk in a seemingly random pattern, have alarmed local residents. As one project-dweller of fifty-four years told this reporter, “Now I’ve seen it all. I walked right into that stack down there on the corner. It was all I could do to get my beagle Jasper to step around.

By the end of the week, I’d begun to envy the old lunatic who’d tried to kill me. At least he had a quiet room to himself. Karen and Jacqueline Swanson were difficult to take as a team. They fought every day, usually about minor things. I suspected Jacqueline had been wise to move out, even if she hadn’t yet found legitimate employment.

My recovery was nearly complete by the end of the week, and I’d begun to make inquiries. I didn’t dare go home, however. If Meng was still sending out assassins, they would check there first.

Not for the last time, I debated a direct assault on Meng’s stronghold. I’d managed it before, but in that case my success had been attributable to surprise. If I tried it again, she would be ready. I was certain she’d have an upgraded security system and a pack of mind-washed goons. Normal people weren’t difficult for a technomancer like myself to best in a fight, but these wouldn’t be normal people. They’d be fanatical, like the old man in the hospital, willing to die to protect their beloved Dr. Meng.

That could all be reversed, however, if I could put Meng out of commission. She wasn’t an imposing person by herself. She was a very professional-looking woman, if in a typical way. But in her domain, she could twist the mind of anyone I brought to the fight with me.

I wrestled with the problem, coming up with various plans, but always rejecting them. I could, for instance, enlist Gilling’s
help. Still, it all seemed too dangerous and full of unknowns. The placement of the rip was often iffy. Gilling might put me down in a closet or on the roof. Worse, I wouldn’t be able to tell ahead of time where I was going to go. I would just have to step into the rip and have a look around. I didn’t like the sound of that. I’d just recovered from a serious mauling, and I wasn’t excited about going another round with Meng’s minions.

I came to the conclusion that I needed more information about Meng herself—and the layout of her domain, the infamous Sunset Sanatorium.

After a few more days, my limp was gone and my arms had regrown their missing flesh. They were still covered in pink wales, but I knew those would fade quickly to white lines, then vanish entirely. They always did. I was feeling almost normal by the weekend. That’s when Karen Swanson came to have a little chat with me.

“You seem much better,” she said. “In fact, I’d call your recovery miraculous.”

“Thanks,” I said.

She gave me an odd look, and I knew she was considering questioning me about my unnaturally fast recuperation. Fortunately, the moment passed.

“I want to talk to you about Jacqueline.”

I nodded. I’d suspected this was coming. Jacqueline was out running some errands, and I was certain Karen’s timing wasn’t accidental.

“No need to thank me again,” I said.

“You certainly have my thanks. But that wasn’t what I was getting at. Well…can you tell me what your intentions are toward my daughter?”

“Uh,” I said, squirming in my chair. I closed my computer, and it turned itself off with a melodic tone. “I don’t know what Jacqueline wants, exactly. We’ve only just met.”

Karen’s face soured. “It’s not just a matter of what she
wants
. She’s twenty-seven, but she acts like she’s still in college. She’s made a number of mistakes in the past.”

“And you don’t want me to be one of them, is that it?”

“Well, I wouldn’t put it that way.”

“Never mind, I understand. I’m feeling much better now, and I thank you for your hospitality.”

It was Sunday night, about 11:00 p.m., when I quietly packed my bags. Jacqueline caught me in the hallway before I could slip away. She appeared in front of me, having apparently been invisible. She wore a long pink T-shirt with a cat on it. Her feet were in slippers, and her legs were bare.

“How long have you been watching me?” I asked in a low voice. Karen had gone to bed with a bottle of champagne an hour ago, but I figured there was no point in risking awakening her by speaking loudly.

“Long enough to know you were going to sneak out without saying good-bye.”

“I’m not going off to war,” I said, smiling. “We’ll see each other soon.”

She looked at me seriously. Her eyes, I saw now, were brimming with tears. “I know what you’re going to do. You’re going after Meng. That’s worse than going to war.”

I shook my head. “Maybe eventually, but not tonight.”

“Take me with you anyway. I was wrong to come back here.”

“We almost died together,” I said. “You don’t want to hang around with me. It’s dangerous.”

Her hand reached out and sought mine. For once, we both stayed visible. I felt a small tingle at her touch. It had
been days since we’d had close contact. We’d been through a lot in a short time, and I found myself thinking about her often. I supposed it was only natural.

“Why haven’t you ever tried to make a move on me?” she asked.

I was surprised. I hadn’t realized she was in such a frame of mind. I found her very attractive, but it had felt wrong to make a move on her as a guest in her mother’s house. Clearly, I’d been too timid.

“I don’t think your mother would approve.”

She smiled at last. “I’m sure she wouldn’t.”

Jacqueline kissed me suddenly, and she almost had me then. I hadn’t been with a woman for months. I touched her waist and she put her hands on the sides of my head. After making out for several long seconds, I disengaged gently.

She looked at my face, reading my expression. When she realized I was still leaving, she pushed me away.

“Just go then,” she said.

“You’re a spoiled brat,” I said gently.

“You think I don’t know that?”

We parted, smiling again. I left the house soon after. Outside, the night was warm and still. I marched past a fake lake toward the highway. I thought about calling Gilling, but I didn’t want to involve him in any more of my misfortunes tonight. Together, we’d escaped the beach world, and he deserved to live another day. I thought about calling McKesson as well, but I didn’t want to make things so easy on him. I would catch up to him at some point. I was certain of that. And I had a few tricks in mind to play on him when I did.

Who did that leave? Gutter Jim? He was the only non-hostile member of the Community I’d met. I wouldn’t call him friendly, but he was at least a neutral party. I wondered what he thought of Meng.

Gilling had told me a way of contacting Gutter Jim. Unsurprisingly, it involved drains and manholes. You had to dangle something into his domain—something interesting.

I traveled to Las Vegas on a series of buses. They made it pretty easy to get to the Strip from anywhere in the region. After all, if people couldn’t get to the casinos, they couldn’t gamble their paychecks. I took the last downtown express to the Strip at 12:30 a.m.

The Strip was still lively, even in the early hours of Monday morning, but I wasn’t headed for the Strip. I took a turn and left the flashing lights and laughing tourists. I soon crossed into the Strip’s less popular neighbor, the Triangle. Finding a quiet corner was easy. In the Triangle, the streets were mostly empty.

I considered each of my objects of power in turn. My plan required risking one of them. I was quite fond of my sunglasses and didn’t want to chance losing them. Next, I considered the photograph. After my near-death experience, there was no way I was going to chance losing it. Third was my Gray Man finger. I’d never been fond of it, but being immune to the direct attacks of other technomancers was a huge advantage. Meng, for example, was not able to bend my mind to her will because of this artifact. I couldn’t afford to let it leave my hand. Not even for a second.

That made the choice quite easy in the end. I pulled out the drawstring on my hoodie until it came loose in my hand. It was only about three feet long, but it would have to do. I took off the wedding ring that gave me small bursts of luck and tied the drawstring to it. Dropping the ring down into the dark recesses of a storm drain took an effort of will, but I managed it.

Even I, who’d always felt less enamored with artifacts of power than most people, had a hard time with this fishing
expedition. I kept imagining strange, alien claws reaching for my ring out of the murky water. These hands, which existed purely in my own mind, had huge, broken nails like claws and a coating of slime that reflected the moonlight. I flinched when I thought I saw the slightest motion in the drain and heard a tiny gurgle.

I fished there like that for quite a while. Absolutely nothing happened until about 1:00 a.m. By that time, the neighborhood had become too quiet for comfort. Only a few cars had passed by, mostly full of lost tourists who had gawked at the weirdo who appeared to be fishing in the storm drain. They had sped off quickly and left me in the darkness again.

By 1:30 a.m. I began giving myself time limits. I would give up in ten minutes. The minutes passed, and I invariably gave myself five more.

I was no longer fearing for my ring—instead, my tailbone hurt after crouching on concrete for over an hour. Worse, my fear of the Beast that supposedly stalked this place had grown steadily. I could only imagine two explanations for the silent streets: either the people here were all hiding and terrified, or they had already been eaten.

The few houses with lights playing in the windows darkened one at a time, but no one came out on the street itself. Had the monster eaten the majority of the population here in the Triangle? Wouldn’t that astonishing fact have reached the nightly news? I was sure McKesson was good at his job, but I couldn’t believe he could cover up a happening of this magnitude.

It was nearly two in the morning when I felt the first tug. Like all long-suffering fishermen, I was surprised and sucked in my breath. I tried not to jump, to scare away whatever it was that I’d attracted, but it was one of the hardest
moments of self-control I’d ever attempted. I wanted to leap up and run.