“While I’m at work, I want someone reliable to walk him every day, wherever he wants to go.”
Dallas tried to look as dependable as humanly possible.
Charlotte continued. “There’s a city ordinance that dogs must be on a leash if you want to walk them. Unleashed strays get picked up snap! We can’t have that. I rescued him from the pound and he’s not going back because of somebody’s carelessness. Understood?”
“Yes, absolutely. I’ll be the best dog walker you ever met.” Dallas felt like an idiot, but he so needed the money. “When did you want me to start?” She didn’t look like she was headed off to work at a Brickell Avenue office in that outfit.
“Today.” Charlotte got up and retrieved a braided leash with a loop on one end and a clip on the other. “I want you to do a test run. If it works out and Buster likes you, then your first day on the clock is today. Sound fair?” Charlotte was pretty no-nonsense herself.
“No problem.” Dallas wondered if she had a map of the neighborhood for him to follow. “Um, how long do you want me to be out with him?”
“Just around the block for today.”
She clipped the leash to a ring on Buster’s collar. “Do you have a cell phone, Mr. Hamilton?”
“Just Dallas, please, and no, I don’t.”
She looked at him with that “loser” expression he’d seen too many times recently. “Well, you can carry mine while I’m at work, in case you need to contact me. The neighborhood’s old, not too dangerous. It’s all mostly rentals like this one. Just watch for cars where there’s no sidewalk and make sure Buster doesn’t get too hot.”
“Got it.”
“There’s one more thing,” she said, standing up. Her hand shook as she gave him the leash. “I need to show you something.”
Before Dallas could breathe "holy shit," Charlotte’s body began to stretch taller and go slightly blurred. Within seconds, a creature about seven feet tall with a head that mostly resembled a moray eel stepped out of Charlotte’s rigid body and stood over him. It had long thin arms, terminating in agile three-fingered appendages. Its skin was leathery looking and kept changing colors, first dull brown and now luminescent green. The figure was semi-transparent, as if it were not able to fully materialize — sort of wavery, like looking through water. The rows of needle-sharp teeth resolved themselves into the semblance of a human smile.
“Charlotte is not quite alone.” The voice was husky, strained sounding, like someone getting over laryngitis.
Dallas dropped the leash and scrambled away. He'd never felt such terror in all his scant twenty-one years.
The not-human voice spoke again. “I regret somewhat having to use her this way, but there wasn’t much of a choice when I came through the gate. She was the only body available.”
Dallas bolted for the door.
“Don’t run. I need your help.” The horrible voice took on a wheedling tone. “I don’t intend to eat you, if that’s what you’re thinking. There are worlds beyond worlds that you don't even have a clue about. Your world's pretty tame, far as it goes, which is why I'm hiding out here.”
“Hiding out?” Dallas’ voice broke and he tried again. “Why?” Images from The War of the Worlds flooded his numbed brain.
“Well, that's the thing. I need to get offworld, but I can't find the gate.”
Dallas blanched. There was that word. Gate. Gate expires. . “This job isn't about dog walking, is it?”
The alien shook its ugly head. “No, friend, it isn't.”
“T-then what am I supposed to be doing?”
“You and Buster here have to help me search for the gate so I can get out of here, which will be impossible after May thirty-first. That’s when the gate expires, goes offline for good. It was a quickie patch job, just meant to get a body in and out in a hurry. So, you know, timeline’s a little tight.”
Dallas swallowed. He hated to ask. “What… who's after you?”
“Not sure. Somebody hired through Limbus, I think. Assassin job most likely.”
Dallas’ knees went shaky. “But that doesn't make sense! Why would a company hire someone — me — and then turn around and contract a hit on the client I’m supposed to be working for?”
"You don’t need to know.”
Dallas was having none of it. “And now that we're talking about this so-called Limbo Ink or whatever it is, how come Charlotte set up this job through them? And by the way, who's Charlotte, or Marilyn, anyway? HUH?" Dallas realized he was shouting. At an alien.
The creature whispered in its raspy not-human voice. “She’s a human friend, with money.”
Dallas didn’t think Charlotte had bought into the “friend” part too much. If anything, she seemed in a state of controlled terror. His hand firmly on the doorknob, he took in the scene: Charlotte and her dog still as statues with an alien being towering between them, talking to him, fixing him with its round yellow eyes.
“What, exactly, are you wanted for on your homeworld?”
“Little of this, little of that, whole lot of the other.”
“You won't tell me, will you?”
“It's really better if you don't know.”
“Do you have a name?”
“You couldn't pronounce it. Charlotte calls me Gurtz.”
The creature said a word that sounded like a blender going off, somewhere between a gulp and a hiss. Gultranz. “That is my species. We’re friendly toward humans, in a number of ways.”
Dallas shuddered, wondering how Gurtz had revealed himself to Charlotte. “Did you ask Charlotte’s permission, before you took over her body?”
“Unfortunately, there wasn’t time. She took it pretty well, all things considered. She's maybe a tad more adventurous than you.”
“What's her reward for helping you?”
Gurtz was coy. “Adventurous, like I said. I might come visit her again, under better circumstances.”
Dallas was sticky with sweat.
“So, you’re like a shapeshifter. A body jumper. Could you take me over?” He gripped the doorknob.
“It’s not that simple, and no, I can't jump from body to body. Took a clever bit of spellcrafting to get me into the human template. But it's been a good disguise, so far.”
Dallas swallowed. “It said on the contract that I was hired to work for somebody named Marilyn Fairbanks but when I went to her address, she’d supposedly moved out, according to her neighbor at the apartments where Limbus told me she lived. Did I get any part of that right?”
Gurtz gave him a long silent look. “We had to make a quick change of plans. Once we found out about the assassin, it became necessary for Marilyn to go into hiding, just to be sure of my safety. Hence the name and address change.”
“What did you mean by human template?”
“Once I take on a basic body template, homo sapiens in this case, I can slip into an available package, like Charlotte. Simple, for a spellcaster of my experience.”
Dallas kept his mouth shut. His brain was in overdrive.
Actually, he was trying to work out what qualified him for such a dangerous job. He was about the least likely person one would want on their side in this kind of situation. He remembered the “life-threatening” part of the Qualifications list and knew with a certainty he should have turned down Rigel’s contract and gotten the hell out. One of his not-so-good choices.
“How come her dog hasn’t gone apeshit? He should be reacting to you but he’s not.”
“I had to tamper a little with its canine instincts, I’m afraid. Buster is highly protective of Charlotte, so it was necessary to imprint myself on his mind as well, in order to keep him from attacking me. I also imprinted the smell of the gate, so he could help me search.”