In spite of her flippant words to Julian, Mary was having a tough time locating the right man. Although she'd never paid attention at school, she wasn't stupid, and she knew exactly what kind of guy Julian was looking for.
She would never admit it, but in the past few nights, she'd felt more satisfaction with herself than she had in all of her previous life. There was something satisfying about tracking Eleisha in secret and always finding her, about traveling wherever she chose with a freedom that no other ghosts seemed to enjoy.
Mary was unique.
She hadn't even thought about her parents in several days. Even though Julian was a cold-blooded bastard, she was starting to kind of… well, like the tasks he gave her. Weird.
Focusing on the task at hand, she spotted a FOR LEASE sign on an empty shop next to a video store, and she got an idea.
Blinking out, she blinked into the empty shop and moved up alongside the window to peer into the street. She could tell a lot about people by the movies they rented.
She started to study everyone who came out of the video store and walked past her.
The first guy was bald and weighed about three hundred pounds, and he was stuffing movies inside his coat like he was ashamed. The films were probably porn.
Nope. Too perverted, she thought.
Next, a couple came out arguing loudly because she'd wanted to see Fried Green Tomatoes again, and he'd wanted to rent The Fast and the Furious with Vin Diesel. They weren't carrying any movies, just arguing.
Nope. Too married.
The next guy was tall and good-looking, wearing tight pants and a tank top. His hair was perfectly gelled, and he had a movie in each hand: The English Patient and A Room with a View.
Nope. Too gay.
Then a slender man of about twenty, with shaggy brown hair, came out of the video store alone. He was wearing jeans, a leather jacket, a backpack, and a pair of ancient Adidas athletic shoes that must have once been white. His shoulders were hunched forward, like he was closed off to everyone else.
Mary looked down at his right hand. He was carrying two movies. The one on top was Spider-Man with Tobey Maguire. When the film slipped slightly, she saw the one behind it: Spider-Man 2.
This guy had promise. He liked movies where an ordinary boy gets bit by a spider and becomes a superhero that Kirsten Dunst would consider sleeping with.
She let him get a little ways down the street, and then she blinked out, rematerializing in an alley down the street so she could keep tabs on him. She repeated this process several times until he reached an apartment building in the Mission District and went inside.
The stairwell was empty, so she managed to follow him up to the fourth floor without being seen. Then he went inside.
Apartment 4-E.
She thought she was on the right track with this one, but she still wasn't sure, so she blinked out and tried to gauge the distance to the back of a small apartment, rematerializing again-poised to wish herself into nothingness-and finding herself alone inside a dirty bathroom. The door was open, and she heard the television come on.
Peering around the door, she saw that he didn't even own a couch, just a shabby overstuffed chair and a TV and one end table that looked like it'd come from a garage sale. He had no other furniture in the room. Looking up, she saw a Keira Knightley calendar hanging on the wall. The light on his answering machine was not blinking. He had no messages.
He put the first film into his DVD player, sat in the chair, opened the backpack, and pulled out a bag from McDonald's.
She'd seen enough.
Blinking out, she stopped once downstairs to get a better look at the building-and then the mailboxes-scanning for the resident of apartment 4-E.
Jasper Nesland.
She blinked out again, focusing on Julian and rushing back to the suite.
"Come on," she said, before she'd even materialized completely. "I think I've got him."
Jasper Nesland ate his Quarter Pounder with Cheese and tried hard to focus on Spider-Man.
Watching the story of Peter Parker usually made him feel better, but he'd had a bad day-bad week actually-and he shouldn't have stopped at the video store and spent eight bucks on movies.
He'd been working for a year at the Quickie Mart on 19th Street, always keeping an eye out for something better. Paying the rent on this rat-hole apartment ate up almost everything he earned, but he just never seemed to get a break like everyone else.
When he was seventeen, his mom ran off to Sacramento with her newest boyfriend-and they didn't invite Jasper along. He'd never known his dad, and it sometimes ate away at him that he didn't have parents to help him out. But since Jasper couldn't change this fact, he'd decided to keep himself afloat.
He worked hard to pull his own weight. He didn't smoke. He rarely drank. He knew a bright future was waiting just around the corner, with money and respect and pretty girls. He just had to wait for some kind of break and be ready to pounce.
Then, earlier this week, he found out his landlord was raising the rent by eighty dollars, and yesterday, his boss had cut his hours, due to business slowing down because of a brand-new Circle K down the street.
Today, he'd felt so bad, so down about everything, that he'd spent forty dollars on lottery tickets, just hoping to get lucky, but he'd come up with nothing, and now he was out forty dollars and might have trouble even making this month's rent.
He shouldn't have rented these movies.
But he had, so he tried to forget everything and keep his eyes on the TV and his mind on Kirsten Dunst. He sighed. If only he had a decent car.
Somebody knocked on his door, and he jumped slightly.
Who could that be?
Even desperate salesmen wouldn't come to this part of the city. He didn't move and the knock sounded again, louder this time.
He stood up and walked over. "Who is it?"
"Open the door."
When the words reached his ears, a cold feeling began to crawl over him. He didn't want to open the door, but he was afraid not to. Something in that voice wormed through his body, filling him with terror of what might happen if he didn't unlock the door.
His hand moved as if functioning on its own, flipped the latch, and turned the knob.
A large man stood in the hallway. He had pale skin, dark hair, and expensive-looking clothes… black slacks, a dress shirt, and a long coat.
He walked in and Jasper backed up, his fear increasing.
What the hell was going on?
The man closed the door and locked it again. Then he looked about the apartment.
"What do you want?" Jasper managed to ask.
But when he spoke, the man's head swiveled rapidly back, his eyes narrowing as if Jasper shouldn't dare speak.
Fear hit him. He'd never been so afraid in his life. He'd never felt anything like this, and he sank to his knees, too shaken to remain standing.
The man strode over and grabbed the front of his shirt. Jasper wanted to scream, to beg, but he couldn't even speak. He felt himself being slammed against the wall, and then to his shock, the man pressed in closer and bit him on the throat.
No… more than bit him. Jasper felt teeth tearing into skin, puncturing deeper, and this time he did try to scream, but nothing came out. He bucked and fought and pushed, but the man was as solid as a moving statue, and he was drinking Jasper's blood.
After a few minutes, Jasper couldn't struggle anymore, and he could hear his heartbeat growing slower and slower, until it barely beat. The man let go of him, letting him fall to the floor. Was it over?