Poisoned Pearls (15 page)

She had to go back and find Cassie. See if maybe they could
come to some middle ground, between the absolutes that Sam saw and the
alternates that Cassie did.

Maybe they could make this work.

I continued to follow the men going to war, ignoring the
cold that seemed more intense, now that Sam thought I was crazy.

Hell,
I
thought I
was crazy.

I also knew I was right.

Hunter saw these things. At least I wasn’t completely alone.

The traffic had reached an absolute standstill around the
downtown sports arena. I wasn’t sure which corporate sponsor owned it
now—the name had changed so many times.

The army didn’t care, though. They just kept marching
through the parked cars. The cold must have been as intense as what we fought
here: despite being warmed by their marching, they still had their furs wrapped
tightly around them.

I didn’t understand the language they started singing in. It
was more guttural than Swedish, but it wasn’t German, either.

I understood the sentiment, however. They were off to fight
an endless war, uncertain of the outcome, sure that it was the final days.

Great. That’s just what I needed. The end of the world.

Great tides of men and women marched, on and on, into the
stadium.

I couldn’t go in there myself. I figured there was a game
that night, given the insanity of the traffic, the streams of fans also going
into the stadium.

There wasn’t anything more I could do, here. Except tell
Hunter when he came by.

Because I’d sure as shit chased away Sam for good.

***

Hunter seemed to take the news that I was a post-cog well.
“It means we fit together, to see everything,” he said gravely. “You truly are
my blood brother.”

I shrugged. It worked well enough as a theory. At some point
I was going to have to get him to explain exactly what he meant by
blood brother.
We weren’t going to be
tied at the hip for the rest of our lives, were we?

“So tell me what you saw, again,” Hunter insisted.

We stood out behind the shop, in the alley, leaning against
the brick wall. I smoked; Hunter didn’t. The cold pressed in hard around us,
and the winds kept whipping up the alley, as if they were trying to hustle us
along. The sliver of sky above us was clear, dark, and empty.

“It was an army. Several, actually. All going off to a great
battle, over near the sport arena.” I described how the guys looked, with their
round shields, thick furs, and long helmets.

They looked like Vikings, the real ones, the ones I’d seen
on the news or in ads or even in the children’s museum in St. Paul.

“And you think it’s the end of days?” Hunter asked. “The
Ragnarok?”

“Dude, I have no idea,” I said. “And what about that spider
thingy?”

“With the non-man?” Hunter asked.

I nodded. It still gave me the creeps.

“I saw it, too. He used it on
Csaba
,
to take his fighting spirit from him,” Hunter said.

“
Csaba’s
no great warrior,” I
scoffed.

Hunter shook his head. “He was organized. He operated mainly
as a supplier. He had an army of other dealers dealing for him. And he kept
order and discipline among his troops. He’d have made a good general.” Then
Hunter paused. “If the price was right.”

I nodded, thinking. Most soldiers fought for honor, or love
of country.

Csaba
was a mercenary, and would
only fight for cash or to save his own skin.

“Events light up the area of knowing based on the intensity
of the participants,” Hunter said. “If they’re emotionally involved, committed,
and there are more than one of them, the event is stronger than, say, a random
mugging of between two strangers on a street.”

“Crimes that are planned show up more than crimes of
passion,” I said, wanting to make sure I understood what he was saying.

“Exactly. Random acts aren’t foretold.” Hunter paced up and
down the alley, head down, all serious and focused.

It made me tired just watching him.

“So part of why we’re seeing these events is because there
are so many people in them, and because they’re so involved in them,” I said.

Hunter nodded, still pacing. March-one-two-three-turn.
March-one-two-three-turn.

“But what are we supposed to
do
with this knowledge?” I asked. “It’s affecting our world,
because of the deaths. But it’s mostly happening in their world.” Wherever that
other world happened to be. Whenever it was.

Hunter sighed, his breath billowing from him in a white
cloud. “That’s always been one of the great debates. Are we supposed to act on
the knowledge we have?” He stopped and turned to me. “I think, in this case,
that yes, we are supposed to act. There were more non-men in the troop you saw,
yes?”

“Yeah. Great tall hulking men, who were about a story and a
half high, with huge chests, carrying hammers and axes. There were also women.”
I shivered, thinking about them again. “On horseback. With spears.”

While the army had been curious, the women had frightened me
in a way I couldn’t describe.

Hunter started his pacing again. “The question is, what are
we supposed to do?”

I shrugged. I hadn’t a clue.

“I think…the non-man who killed your friend. Who killed
Csaba
. We should start with him,” Hunter said after a
moment.

“Okay. Cool. How?” I asked.

Hunter gave me a tight smile. “I need to go hunting. My area
of knowing won’t cover the full city, not even with the strongest dose of the
drug. I need a car, and someone to drive me, while I seek him.”

“I see,” I said, nodding. “And who would that be?” He wasn’t
expecting me to steal another car, did he?

Hunter’s smile opened up into something lazy and bright. “I
think our friend Josh owes us, don’t you?”

I had to laugh. Hunter might have been crazy, but he was
turning out to be my kind of crazy.

***

It didn’t take Hunter long to find Josh’s new apartment
building that the company had moved him to. It was a much nicer place in
Uptown, one of the older buildings that had been renovated, between Hennepin
and Lake of the Isles. The neighborhood was quiet, the only life being the
Christmas lights, blinking like mad, chasing each other around porches and
trees. It wasn’t quite as if the zombie apocalypse had already occurred. But
you could see it from here.

Fortunately, the old trick of pressing every single call
button on the intercom worked and we were buzzed in quickly.

Josh, of course, didn’t want to let us in, even when we
knocked politely and everything.

“I’ll just have to kick in the door, then,” Hunter told
Josh, who peered at us through the chain on his door.

“I’ll call the cops,” Josh threatened.

“And then you’ll have to look over your shoulder every time
you go outside,” I pointed out helpfully. “Because if you don’t talk to him
now, well, you’ll never see him coming.”

“I told the company I had to leave town,” Josh muttered
under his breath as he slid back the chain.

“You know, if he was really pissed off, moving to a
different state wouldn’t have helped,” I told him as I walked in. “A different
country, maybe.”

Josh stayed standing in front of the door. His apartment had
all the charm of his office, which was none at all. No one lived there, just
like no one actually worked at that desk. No pictures hung on the walls. From
where I was standing, I could see empty boxes in the living room, no furniture.

“Look,” Josh said. “I did what I was paid to do. No more, no
less.”

“You reported on me and my
progress
to your company,” Hunter snarled.

If I could have backed up further, I would have. Being with
Hunter in a narrow hallway felt about as safe as being in a locked cage with a
tiger. A
hungry
, pissed-off tiger.

“And they paid me to look after you. To make sure that you
had clothes and food,” Josh said, also getting angry. “I helped you survive out
there.”

“And you did such a good job of it,” I added sarcastically.

Both men turned to glare at me.

“Seriously. Hunter, you’re a mess. Sorry, but that’s the
truth. You need counseling to help you deal with the PTSD. Even if they didn’t
believe what you were seeing, they should have helped you deal with the stress
of it,” I said. “So Josh, don’t go patting yourself on the back too much. You
kept
him on the street. Unable to merge
back with society. So you and your company could continue their experiment with
him.”

“Whatever,” Josh said, shaking his head and rolling his
eyes.

Josh was worse than a used car salesman—even if he
knew the truth of the situation, he wasn’t about to admit it.

“And now you need to do one more thing for me,” Hunter said,
turning his attention back on Josh.

“What, get you some condoms? Grocery store is just up the
street,” Josh said, sneering.

I knew Hunter could move fast. This time, though, he moved
so fast I didn’t even see him move. I just saw the end result, Josh being held
up by his neck by Hunter’s one hand, his feet dangling above the floor. “You
will treat my blood brother with respect,” Hunter said sharply.

“We need you to drive us someplace,” I told Josh when Hunter
didn’t appear to want to continue, as Josh’s face turned red.

“Where?” Josh managed to choke out.

“We’ll know it when we see it,” I told him. It was as close
to the truth as I was about to get.

“Okay, yes,” Josh wheezed.

Hunter dropped him unceremoniously.

Josh collapsed to the floor and sat there, coughing for a
moment. “Then we’re even, right?” he finally asked. “I won’t owe you any more
favors?”

Hunter gave a laugh that I’d never heard before, loud and
full of merriment, like this was the best joke he’d heard in a long time. “Oh
no, Josh my friend. This is just the
start
.”

***

Josh still drove the same shitty piece of junk I’d first met
him in. It smelled of sweat and cheap fries, as if he’d been living in it
before moving to his swanky new digs. However, the engine turned over right
away and the heat started blasting quickly.

“So where am I going?” Josh asked as he eased his way into
the holiday traffic on Lake Street.

I half turned in the front seat to look at Hunter. “Well?” I
asked, when Hunter didn’t reply.

“North,” Hunter said after a moment, frowning.

I turned back around as Josh navigated.

“I take it your powers have come,” Josh said quietly as we
headed north on Hennepin.

“No thanks to you,” I pointed out. “Didn’t use your
inhaler.” I did have it, though, in a pocket of my jacket.

Always better to be prepared. Just in case.

“I’d say
every
thanks to me,” Josh countered. “If I hadn’t interfered, you would have gone
into the regular program. It would have taken months, if not years, for your
power to manifest.” He paused, then asked, “So what’s it like?”

I snorted at him. “Yeah, like I’m ever going to tell you
anything. You’ll just carry that information back to your corporate overlords.”

“You ever get shy on money, you let me know,” Josh told me.
“I’m sure we can work out a deal.”

“Why do you think I won’t be able to get a regular job?” I
asked him. “Now that I’m one of the
blessed
and everything.” And wasn’t that a kicker?

“Because of how you got there,” Josh said. “You cheated. You
took a shortcut. They aren’t going to thank you for that. Or give you a job. No
one will trust your powers. No one legitimate, that is.”

Shit.
That sounded
just as fucked as the government generally was.

“Don’t listen to him, Cassie,” Hunter said. “There aren’t
enough of us. You have skills others need.”

I shrugged. Even if I didn’t have a job working as a
post-cog, I was certain I could stay employed at Chinaman Joe’s.

Even if I was taking off a bunch of time during one of our
busiest weeks.

Hunter sat in the back with his eyes closed, muttering. Josh
didn’t seem worried about this, so I tried not to be as well.

Traffic was awful. I couldn’t see why people did this every day,
twice a day, for years. I don’t think I could. Would have made me absolutely
nuts.

I didn’t see any pasts, though, as we were traveling. I also
didn’t try finding that blue dot and riding the waves out. I didn’t want to
take a chance on interfering with Hunter’s hunt.

After getting us all the way north to the circling
interstate, Hunter had us turn east, toward St. Paul.

Josh predicted that as soon as we left the freeway we’d be
lost.

He was right. I had no idea where we were, where we were
going.

Luckily, Hunter was driving by feel, not by map. He directed
us down streets that probably were known only to locals, then out again,
finally drawing us up near the capitol.

“Here?” I asked dubiously. I figured any senator worth his
salt would have the call girls coming to him.

“Here,” Hunter said as he slid out of the car. “Thanks for
the ride, Josh. And all the drugs. Particularly the speed and heroin.”

“But I—”

Hunter slammed the door on Josh’s reply.

“What was that all about?” I asked as we made our way up the
wide sidewalk.

“I assume everything said in that vehicle is recorded,”
Hunter said. “Figured I’d give his, what did you call them,
corporate overlords,
something to ask
him about.”

I’d been worried that Hunter hadn’t seemed very angry at
Josh for what he’d been doing.

Now I realized that Hunter didn’t have to show rage for him
to be intent on revenge.

***

The capitol was prettier than I remembered as a kid, coming
here on field trips. White fairy lights decorated the grand domes. There was more
snow over here as well, coating the lawns in graceful white. While the
buildings were huge, the way they were set out also made them accessible; at
least, that’s what my dad had told me.